Today

Today would have been Dad's 80th birthday.

He only made it to 57, just four years older than I am now.

Which is worrying.

There will be a point in the not too distant future in which he has been gone longer than I knew him. My memories of him are sketchy now, I can't really remember his voice, what he sounded like. But I do remember his laugh. He liked to laugh.

And wind people up. Start arguments and walk off. Apparently. His friends at work called him the aggrovator.

He is now just a faded memory, as we all will be one day, faces in faded photos, a name in a newspaper clipping remarking that we had passed, and his family missed him.

Now his widow sits 24 hours a day in her armchair, smoking, eating shortbread and doing crosswords.

We are just waiting for our time to be up, really. It how we use that time, really that sets us apart.

Death will drag me kicking and screaming.