Father's Day

It is Father's Day today in Australia (and possibly elsewhere, too).
(BTW, this is my first post from my new IPhone and I am not so au fait with editing, please forgive!)
Our Dad died in 1971 when I was just 18, and my baby brother was 9. So our Mum was left a widow at 38, with six kids, and eight and a half thousand acres of Mallee farm to run. But she had loads of training - Dad had been dying for the best part of ten years. 
And Mum protected us from the worst of Dad's illness (he had Multiple Myeloma, a fucking nasty way to die) as well as managing the running of the farm, nursing Dad, feeding us, and playing her piano every day...
Which is why I always have not just acknowledged Mother's Day for her but also Father's Day.
So, happy Dad's Day to my Mummy!!! I send her at least a card every year, always a phone call (but that happens just about every day!).
In January my former husband died - also of Multiple Myeloma, he was the father of S3 & S4 (as well as the two stillborn babies). 
S4 posted this to Facebook early this morning before heading off to start a 0700 restaurant 12 hour shift (to explain the grammatical lapses!):
"

facebook Marshall Smash Marshall Smash updated his status.: "An open letter to everyone who has a dad. Today is totally a day for hallmark to gouge people a little more and it’s easy to become disillusioned by that but it is also so much more than that. All this tacky Today is a day that everyone who is able to should use to go out and try and spend some time with their Dad, to do something to make them proud. Why? Because they gave us life and that’s pretty great and it’s probably not easy being a Dad. It won’t take much, probably much less than you think. Remember that we were once small enough to fit in his hands and we shat ourselves several times a day so who are we to act so dignified? Absolutely do not buy anything from one of those “Stuff for Blokes” shops such as a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency picture frame with a can of beer behind it pieces of crap. They are tacky and lame and you’re only embarrassing yourself. You can do better. This is also for those of you who have shit relationships with your Dads. I can relate to that. They helped make you, for better and worse, even if they weren’t always there. There was no training, no guidebook, and in many cases no support. And they might have had idiots for fathers too. This is a day for Dad’s who might have made a bit of a mess of things to reach out as well. Sort that out. So much can go unsaid but there comes a time where you have to think about some things you would like to fix, and then to look them right in the eye and tell them that they are probably fucking everything up, and would they like to sort it out? Note* this will almost definitely be awful but from experience I can say it’s worth it [sample bias, that’s bad science]. So today, if you can, spend a little time and cook him some food or take him out for a meal somewhere quiet, make him something, write him a letter, have a conversation, work something out, fucking do *anything*. Get started right now, because if you don’t sooner or later one or both of you is going to be fucking dead and there won’t be a damned thing you can do about it. And if you don’t have a Dad around feel free to come drink a shit load of bourbon with me in thirteen hours when I finish work." View post