Ruby tuned 13 this week. As days go by I find I catch fewer and fewer glimpses of the little girl in her and more and more of the young woman she is becoming; whilst that makes me nostalgic for my baby it makes me smile and feel enormous pride and excitement for her future.

I wrote this piece a year ago and feel it’s relevant to share today, especially for all those newly single parents out there who may be about to celebrate a birthday for the first time in the new normal they find themselves in.

Celebrating your child’s birthday as a single parent is tough; especially if, like me, you have no positive shred of anything left in the relationship between you and your child’s other parent. Today my baby girl turns 12. The year she turned 9 he was here in body but already his mind had left us. He hugged her tight at bedtime and gave her the last ‘hug as an 8 year old’, this was their tradition. The night before she turned 10 she sobbed in my arms; how could she grow a year older without him giving her the last hug of that age? He sent gifts from Amazon that first year, wildly inappropriate gifts but they arrived in time nonetheless.

I didn’t wrap them so they sat in brown boxes beside brightly wrapped gifts. Looking back now it seems petty, why didn’t I wrap them? He terrified me, of that I was sure, I was scared to get it wrong; he could have asked me to open boxes and wrap them, I hated him but my love for her would have had me do it to make it as perfect as I possibly could have for her without her Daddy being there. Over the years since, he has thrown money at the problem just as he always did. He has never once managed to get a card mailed to either girl arrive on time, even a sweet 16 card for our other daughter arrived three weeks late. As a parent I can see all these things and only do my best to shield them from that pain, but there comes a time when actually little by little that pain needs exposing otherwise their relationships are developing and changing based on lies and that is where this all began. Today it is hard to celebrate when I have no one to share the immense wonder of her growth with; the one person who helped me make her, the person who, although absent so often because of work, did at least hear from me the intimate details of all she was doing, can’t now share the wonderful journey she is on because he has barely spent any time with her over the last three years... So today should be a day of beautiful things, celebrations and laughter but I’ll be honest, I am struggling to move from the couch to make those things happen because I feel that weight on my shoulders so acutely today.  

But the day wore on and was beautiful in its own way. There were cuddles and laughter and a birthday card in the mail which did arrive on time; was read and immediately consigned to the recycle bin. There were friends for sleepovers and dinner out, there were candles and cake and night games and singing, there was injury and bleeding and blood on a new sweatshirt. It’s still sad not having that person to share the memories and pride with, but it means there’s all for more for me! I had all the birthday hugs, I had all the birthday giggles and I had all the birthday love... I am truly blessed.

And this year there were as many hugs, giggles and laughter. A return to in-person classrooms and a teenager who didn’t even nearly morph into Kevin overnight, thank goodness!

Be kind, be gentle…

Denise xoxo