Dad's 88th birthday came around and I thought about him a lot, before, during, and afterwards. Instead of the usual three-person birthday celebration we normally hold this time of year, we got together on Rachel's and celebrated just hers. Mine somehow got excluded from the agenda, too.

We all reminisced. Rachel is sad that though she has thought of mum often since December, she has never felt that she was 'there'. Apparently mum had said that if she could make contact after death, she would. I don't believe in any form of afterlife except how one lives on in other people's memories, but I recognise the sadness in this and, if it continues, the slowly dawning realisation that a person we knew for all our lives has really and truly gone.

Last year was awful. And this year has not felt like an improvement at all, despite my hopes, and despite all working out quite well. The Supreme Court granted us probate without any bother over the lost codicil; the deposit for the house has already been received, and there is reason to celebrate: Connor, the only grandson, is getting married in September.

There has been other sad news, which affected me quite deeply. I learnt via Google that a friend from school had died in February, quite suddenly, of a heart attack. Greg and I had known him from when we were perhaps four and six, respectively. He was always jovial and appeared full of life, and death just does not seem to fit my memory of him. I contacted his younger brother, who had in fact been my best friend for several years. I commiserated, and I told him of mum and dad's death. In his reply he had some more shocking and peculiar news; his mother had died on the same day as ours. So they had had two deaths in three months, just as we had. Somehow I kept thinking how peculiar it was that when he and I met as boys only just starting to go to school, our mothers were destined to die on the same day, several decades later. I know the thought makes no sense, but still...

So, mum and dad have both now had their first posthumous birthday, and we are already closing in on the anniversary of dad's death. You don't forget the dead at all. They just keep coming around. It'll be dad in September, just before the wedding, and on Connor's birthday. Then mum in December, then mum again in April, and dad in July. And then I'll have another birthday, and try to remember what dad was like at my age - what kind of exercise was he doing, how much hair did he have, where were we living, and so on. And on and on.