I’m sorry you lost your father at such a young age, Lyn. That must have been tough. Joan lost her father when she was 19, just at the start of the war, and I know it was a great blow to her.

Like your mother-in-law, my dad was born in 1922.

By coincidence February 22 was my mother-in-law’s birthday. Born in 1922, she would have been one hundred on 22.02.2022, and might have enjoyed the numeric palindrome–though she would never have confessed to being that age. I do not remember the date of my mother’s death, 12 years ago, although I always remember her birthday. On the other hand I always remember the date of my father’s death, and mourn him, perhaps because I was only eleven at the time.