birthdays

yesterday we had a birthday party. my husband and i are both april birthdays so we thought we would have a joint one. we shared it with two friends who are also april babes; one of them is autistic and has never had a party because she never had enough friends to invite, the other hasn't celebrated her birthday since her twin sister died 5 years ago.

it was the usual hectic day when you have a party, rushing about tidying and cooking. getting ready was fun. my friend painted my toenails, and her boyfriend put hairgel in my hair. my husband put my jewellery on for me. i felt like a princess with all the attention.

my dear friend jo made a cake. it was huge and beautiful and had all our names on it in icing. we all blew out the candles and everyone sang happy birthday. as i blew them out it struck me that the last time i had blown out candles on a birthday cake was when i was a child. it is not that i haven't celebrated birthdays, just that i have not had a cake.

my mum made me a chocolate cake on the last birthday i was with her. i had some friends round for tea. when my mum brought out the cake i blew out the candles. my mum went to get a knife but i dug in with my fingers and all my friends followed suit. i didn't think until it was too late but the lovely cake was a mess and my mum looked really disappointed. for many years chocolate cake made me cry.

when i lived with my dad and my stepmum i missed my mum particularly hard on birthdays. my stepmum understood this. one year, late at night on the day before my birthday she came in when i was lying awake and gave me two bottles of perfume as a present. she sat with me a while and we felt very close. we didn't always get on too well so this was really special.

yesterday felt like quite a milestone for all of us birthday people. it struck me that being able to celebrate your birthday is a big part of being comfortable in your skin and accepting yourself. i am lucky to have such good friends and such a brilliant family.

grandma

lately my thoughts have been on death more than is usual. this must be because of the anniversary of my mum's death, followed by the anniversary of my friend's mum's death. my friend's mum's funeral was filmed so that people overseas could see it and on the anniversary of her death we watched the film. it showed a large family celebrating the life of a remarkable woman, cut to the quick by her absence.

when my grandma died i missed her funeral. grandma was my mum's mum and was an afrikaans-speaker who had been uprooted from cape town to follow her husband to his beloved north wales. she had 5 young children, one from her first marriage, and spoke no welsh. my mum's dad died not long afterwards, leaving grandma to try to feed her kids on national assistance. my mum remembered how the authorities would come round and if you had more chairs than members of the family they would take the extra ones away to sell.

my gran took in sewing and kept chickens and somehow managed to bring up her kids in what must have been a hostile and unfamiliar environment. to the end of her life she had a broad afrikaans accent. she was a tough woman, but kind and fair. i spent many school holidays at her house when my sisters went on holiday abroad with their dad. gran's house was called "gorfwysfa" which means "place of peace". it was a solid house built of slates blocks and looked out over a marsh. the marsh had mysterious blue lights at night from the gas. my cousins and i were scared to go too far into it because of quicksand.

we went back to north wales to sprinkle mum's ashes and tried to find the house. we drove all round the village but were unable to find either the house or the marsh. we stopped to ask some builders who were doing up a slate house and amazingly it was gran's house. where the marsh had been was a forest which was why i did not recognise it. it brought home how long ago it had been when i stayed there.

when gran died i had just had a miscarriage and was off work. my mum's twin sister rang me up. "grandma has died" she told me. i asked when the funeral would be. "we have already buried her" answered my aunt "we didn't think you would be able to make it because of being pregnant". i was shocked to the core. grandma had been one of the few stable things about my childhood. it felt as though i had been robbed of the chance to say goodbye. i told my aunt that in fact i was no longer pregnant but that even if i had been i would have been able to come to the funeral. i told her how shocked i was that i had not been told of grandma's death.

my aunt went on to say that my other aunt, who had arranged the funeral, thought that if i knew about it beforehand i might bring my mum. by this time my mum was demented and confused. my aunt had apparently been worried she might "make a scene or jump in the grave or something". so my mother never got the chance to say goodbye either.

i have not spoken to the aunt who organised the funeral since. my mum's twin is someone who would not have dared to go against her, but i am left feeling that she too betrayed me. the capacity of my family to make me feel utterly unimportant never ceases to amaze me.