Months have a life of their own

It's funny how months take on their own characters, and it's nothing to do with the weather, the seasons or social conventions.
For me February is a happy month - lots of birthdays to celebrate and happy memories re-conjured.  November too has more than its fair share of birthdays and is a time when I feel very close to my family even though I'm half the world away.
April, however, is a haunted month. It is bad enough that I have swapped excited the Spring time anticipation of the UK for the crisp, darker mornings and falling leaves of New Zealand's autumn.  But April is also haunted by the anniversaries of many bereavements, from my first real experience of losing a family member (paternal grandfather) to my most recent (my maternal grandmother) which still makes my heart heavy and my throat tighten after 4 short years.
It's not that I dread April's arrival.  There's no point in that as I can no more put it off than stop the leaves falling from the trees.  Rather, I spend the whole month feeling raw and a little shaky, my usually tough outer shell marred by a myriad of cracks and fractures that let the tears seep out when I least expect it.
My heart breaks afresh every year, and ghosts of cuddles past crowd into my waking mind, random snapshots appearing in the photo album of my memory and even other senses taking a trip down nostalgia avenue.  Why is it I wake up thinking of the familiar, comfortable smell of my nan's house?  Beeswax and lavender furniture polish mixed with stale cigarette smoke have never featured in houses I've owned but remain as fresh today as when my six-year old self would push open the back door and rush in for a cuddle on her lap.
My grandfather sits in his armchair, and his short bristly mustache scratches as I give him the obligatory kiss - not so familiar is his house where ornaments can't be touched and the poodle rules the roost - 30 years old or more that memory is, yet it feels like it was impressed on my grey matter last week.
And further back still, my great grandmother sitting in her corner chair, watching my cousins and me share out the chocolate bars from her bottom drawer and the 5pence pieces from the jar.  She was so pleased when I picked her birthday for my teenage wedding, and although she died a few months before that day I'm sure that she was sitting there in one of her best wedding hats as I walked down the aisle in our village church.
So here I sit, in the middle of this most haunted of months, smiling through impending tears.  It is not a month to be feared, but it is distinctly bittersweet  - happy happy memories mixed inextricably with the ache of loss.
Sorry to be a little maudlin today.  It's probably because I'm writing this in my car, sitting outside a local funeral director's office waiting for my son to emerge.  He is stepping up as a newish boyfriend to support his young lady at her father's funeral.  I am proud of him beyond words, and so would my grandfather, my nan and my great grandmother be if they could see him now.