Happy Birthday Mum, or Look Mum: No Chains!

Today was my Mum's eightieth birthday. Eighty! Amazing...

Anyway, we had a lovely lunch. My wife was there (one of the benefits of self-employment...), Mum's partner, and my sister and her boyfriend. An Italian restaurant I hadn't visited before, a lovely Pino Grigio Blush and gorgeous food.

All this, and a beautiful day for her birthday, too.

As we were standing beside her grave before we went to the restaurant, we reflected on the fact that we'd confidently expected her to live to a hundred - she had so much energy, such an appetite for life - and losing her last year, barely a month after our wedding, was a massive shock.

It's a lesson to us all to not waste a moment of our lives, however fit and well we seem to be, because there isn't always a tomorrow. Her death was probably the final nudge I needed to make the big leap - my father's passing had started the process almost five years ago.

She lived her life to the maximum - especially the second half of it. And that's true of so many people, it can hardly be a coincidence. Something about the deaths of our parents, which seems to more than just a reminder of our mortality, serves to give fresh impetus to our own lives.

Sometimes that impetus fizzles out, but I intend to follow her lead.

Dad was proud of my sister and me anyway, and I know Mum was proud of us both, too. I know we shocked and scared her at times as well, but I also know she'd have been proudest of all if she could have seen us both flying as we are now. Not wasting time, not living within self-prescribed limits and not living in fear of what people might think.

Except, perhaps, our Mum and Dad.

Happy birthday Mum. You were an example to us all.

Roy Everitt, Writing For Results