Birthdays are undoubtedly my favourite thing in the whole world. I like to think of my birthday as my own unique and personal new year. I write down resolutions for my upcoming year, reflect on my past one in my journal, and always take myself out on special birthday dates. So, of course, I treat the birthdays of the people I love with the same fervour and excitement, even when they don’t themselves.

My husband’s birthday fell on a Friday this year. It also happened to be three days after my best friend left us and went to heaven.

He had gone to the UK ahead of me, and I followed a few days later, planning to stay in London on my own for a couple of days and rejoin him on the evening of his birthday. It was an act of defiance and self-rediscovery. He said he would come down and have dinner with me the day I landed. I’d agreed, but made it very clear I wanted to be alone from then on. During those solo days, I intended to roam the streets of the capital, collecting presents and an elaborate birthday card. I would have written him a traditional long, soppy paragraph about how my love for him grows with each passing year, possibly including a funny anecdote or two from the year just gone.

Instead, he met me an hour after I landed and stayed overnight in my tiny bed in my minuscule hotel room in Kensington as I sobbed tears of shock and sorrow and disbelief and anger – so much anger – into his shoulder. And into the pillow. And into the lovely wooden floors of my overpriced one-guest studio.

I wish I was exaggerating when I say I have no recollection of how we passed the next day. In my grand plan of chosen loneliness, I had booked a table for one at a fancy Palestinian restaurant. I forced myself to go there in my rare hour of denial, turning the table for one to a cramped table for two, and coaxing myself to swallow the small bites of musakhan so I didn’t pass out on the way home. That evening, I traveled back with him to his hometown. Solitude was no longer an option.

Which meant I woke up in his childhood bed on the morning of his birthday. I made a silent promise to myself not to cry. That would be my birthday present to him, for now. But two hours after leaving the bed, giving him a birthday hug, and sitting across from him at his parents’ dining room table, I was once again a muddled mess of tears and disbelief. I had failed.

Now, back in London, I handed the cashier the overdue birthday card (with a cute dog holding a 3D ballon on its front), alongside a deck of cards called “Guidance to grief” I had found tucked away next to all the birthday and engagement and newborn cards. Maybe I saw her raise her eyebrows at the contrasting sentiments, or maybe I imagined it. Maybe it was a projection of how I felt, seeing the two of them side by side.

And then I let out a laugh.

How cruel and ironic life can be sometimes. And how we’re forced, by our innate nature, to carry on. Trudge through the feelings in search for light on the other side. When you left us, I got an influx of messages from friends and acquaintances telling me how it doesn’t get easier but we get better at managing the pain. I guess that’s the light I’m searching for. I know life will never be the same again. So I look for the irony and the contrast of life and death and make sure I tell my loved ones just how much I love them. And I look up at the trees more often. And watch the rain fall in the puddles. And look for smiles on strangers’ faces and wonder what’s making them so happy. And then wonder whether, like me, they’re hiding mountains of pain within them. And yes, I do all that to look for signs of you all around me. But I do it for you, too. Every day I live, I live it twice. Once for me, and once for you. Every beautiful ruffle of lush leaves on the giant trees in the Common. Every rain drop that falls on my cheek. Every beautiful sunset. Every tangy sweet. Every love song and sad song and happy song. I do it for me, and I do it for you. And the irony of it all doesn’t escape me. Just like my never-ending thoughts of you.