Two Decades...

With the last year seemingly out of control, and 2021 appearing to be no better, it surprises and amazes me that today would be Bethanys 20th birthday. 

Twenty years. 

Twenty years ago I sat there as she was born, not knowing what her future would hold - not even knowing what the coming hours would hold for her, let alone the coming days, weeks and months. As it turned out, the first week of her life was a complete and utter shitstorm of things, with new stuff being discovered to be wrong with her literally every day. 

I can still remember every part of that first week, with a different specialist being introduced every single day, with a look on their face that you just knew meant "uh oh" and that they had to break some new medical issue to you.

But, if you knew that tiny little baby, Bethany fought through every single thing thrown at her that week. And it blows my mind that it was TWENTY years ago that this all happened. People say time is a great healer, but it's really not. Time makes things feel different. Time doesn't heal anything, it just makes it different.

And as is usual on her birthday, I try to picture what she would look like, what she would be doing, what sort of person would she be. I admit, with everything going on - personally and in the world - my brain isn't in the best of places of late, and it's hard to remember it's her birthday, a happy day... I have to fight to remember the good, the happy, the funny... You'd have thought after so many years of practice it would be a simple thing, but who knows how my head works the way it does.

To my beautiful birthday girl, Bethy, 

Happy Birthday my little love. I can't believe you would be twenty today. Twenty years old. It just sounds crazy to me. 

As ever, I think about what you would be doing - would you be working, would you be at university, would you have a partner? Would your hair be long, finally, or have you given up trying to grow it and just keep it short? Do you drive? Do you still live here, or have your own place? What have you been through with doctors and hospitals over the years?

I think about all that sort of thing a lot, but more so today. Today brings the daily stuff into sharper focus.

I think about what sort of interactions you would have with Dom and his fiancée Lucina. How would you and Jaysen be together? Would you be fussing over Molly now she's expecting her first baby with Korbon? What would you be doing for Tamsyn now she is he and called Theo? Would you be living with Kellie and I, or would we be coming to visit you are your place?

Regardless of any of that, I just want you to know that regardless of anything, as ever, you would be incredibly loved. You are still, incredibly loved. I think about you every day, and miss you every day. Today being your birthday brings it to the forefront of my mind more strongly, and I can't help but feel pain that you are not here, that I can't give you a birthday cuddle, or ply you with cake and presents. I miss having cuddles from that crazy little girl, and miss the fact I've not had cuddles from the bigger girl, the teenager and the adult. I can feel with every part of me, you would have done incredible things as you grew older, and almost pity everyone that never met you or knew you.

Everything about you made the world a better place my Bethy, and selfishly, I wish you were here, now, in the world, doing what you did best - making me laugh and giving the strongest little cuddles ever.

Happy birthday my beautiful little baby.

And as ever, I See You Baby...

Always.

Lots of love,

Daddy

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