Mother's Day without Dad

MOTHER'S DAY WITHOUT DAD


Mother's Day is coming, so I really must get started on featuring the Edna Hibel 2006 Mother's Day Collection on my art, collectibles and gifts website Cherish Collectibles. When you operate a retail website like mine, you have to prepare for each holiday or festive period months in advance. I'm running a little late, due to my father's long illness and recent passing.

My dad left this world just a few days after my mother's birthday, and only two days after Valentine's Day. I had meant to make my mum a birthday cake. Cheesecake, actually, with the addition of her favorite fruit. Dad's rapid deterioration scuttled those plans. I had already purchased all the ingredients. In all the anxiety and hurry, I had forgotten to put the cream in the fridge. My husband, Andrew, noticed it on the table outside the kitchen four days later. The weather had been unusually warm, so we wrote the cream off. For some reason anyway, Andrew decided to put it in the fridge.

Amazingly, when I checked the cream a couple of days ago, it was fine, and absolutely delicious. Life is so unpredictable. Those that don’t seem to have a hope of lasting, survive, And the ones that you take for granted and think will always be around, eventually fade into the night.

Dad made it a point to celebrate Mum's birthday in a fancy restaurant every year. It was always the same restaurant, and he always ordered her favorite dishes. This year, he was so sick that Mum missed her annual birthday treat for the first time ever. I thought that I would try to make it up to her by making her a special birthday cake. But that didn't materialise either when Dad took a turn for the worse.

When we realized that Dad wasn't going to make it, Andrew and I bought a box of my mum's favorite pastries on the way to the hospital, right after we picked her up. Dad treated my mum to those pastries every weekend, stopping only when he became seriously ill. During Dad's last moments, we told him that Mum had her favorite pastries with her, and that he shouldn't worry about her. We would take care of her, and she would always have her favorite things to enjoy.

This will be Mum's first Mother's Day without Dad. Dad's shoes are too big to fill, but I'll try my best.