Happy Birthday Mum xxx Happy birthday! You would be 54 today, which sounds so young. It is really, I’m not sure what’s going on, but this still doesn’t feel real. It doesn’t feel right and things are drifting along like they did before, just not as good as if you were here. I miss the texts you would send me about silly things. It just made me feel like I was in your mind, even though I was 180 miles away. I miss you forwarding emails for the same reason, and I always used to picture you laughing & smiling as you read them and passed them around. I miss how positive you were about everything, and how easy you were to talk to. We’d spend 2 hours on Skype and you’d still be asking questions about me and my life. You put a smile on my face every time I saw you. It hurts that I won’t ever have that again. I dreamt about you last night. I dreamt that I was there with you in your last few days, and that I told you how much you meant to me, and how perfectly you had made my life. I wish I could have given that to you, after everything that you gave me. But your last gift to me was to protect me from seeing you unwell, to shield me like you have so many times in my life, and to keep my lasting memories of you as happy, smiling ones. Ones of you gardening at my new house, of us doing hula hooping at the Manor House. Of us eating together as a family, of you sliding down the slippery mat in the back garden of Clarence Drive. Ones of you dropping me to golf in your orange Beetle, and of you dancing at weddings. You were always the first one on the dance floor and were always so happy and beautiful. Every event was better with you there. I’ll never forget the times we meet up and spend time together just Mother and Son. We had such a bond. We met in Hyde Park for Christmas and in Brighton for coffee. It kills me that I’ll never get to see you dance at my wedding. That I’ll never hand you my first child and see that loving look in your eyes. That you won’t be there when I move back near you and pop over for tea or go out for lunch. Every other person in this world has flaws, but you had none. You were such an angel and I miss you so much. Happy birthday my perfect Mum xxx