It's my Dad's 70th birthday today.
It's an odd occasion in many ways: as I've spoken about before, we have a friendly relationship if not an overwhelmingly close one, and he really is the last link between me and what I think of as my 'old' family: that traditional family structure of my birth-- my mother is dead, I am estranged from my brother and see no way of going back, I have never been close to any cousins or grandparents and never see them beyond the occasional visit from overseas relations or bumping into each other in the shops, which suits me fine. Dad is it, and even though we live no more than thirty kilometres from each other, we're far from in each other's pockets.
I've never thought of him as old. Perhaps you never do with parents-- I don't know. Mum died when she was 61, which certainly is not old, so I've no experience in the mind set. But there's no denying that 70 is an age where the average lifespan begins to loom on the horizon: certainly, there's got to be a point where every year begins to feel like an extra year, one you've been granted rather than taken as your right. Or perhaps I overstate the age thing because of my own particular phobias. Either way, I find it difficult to associate my old man with an old man. There's the understanding, at the back of my vision of him, that one day he'll be gone and that somewhere along the line I'd better start preparing myself for that eventuality.But not now.
For now, he's only 70. There's plenty of kick in the old bugger yet. I'll drop in on him after work today: the kids have made him cards, and I have a present and a hug for him. We may not be in each other's pockets, but he's still my Dad.
Happy birthday.
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