(dad’s) birthday treat

29Oct09

The Mechanic is, as his moniker here indicates, a mechanic. He conforms to stereotype: big, broad, hairy and bursting with testosterone. He hauls cars around the workshop with his bare hands and brute strength.

On the surface of it all, The Mechanic doesn’t appear to be one of life’s Great Thinkers. He doesn’t seem to ponder the universe, or consider too deeply thoughts and feelings. If you ask him how he is, more often than not, you’ll get a simple and straightforward: “I’m alright, how are you?” The world is as the world does. He has his cup of tea at 6.15am every morning (unless he is running late for work) and gets on with it.

On a day-to-day basis, the Mechanic is what one might call “a bloke”.

All. Man. Grrrr.

And I love him for that.

But I also love him for the immense sensitivity that he hides underneath the greasy overalls and oil-blackened high-vis bomber jacket (as well as the Proper Man Beard and armpits so pungent that the smell knocks out small children).

Yesterday, as the blog post indicated, was my Dad’s birthday. I had taken the day off work because, finding even ‘normal’ days increasingly difficult to navigate (and I thought this was supposed to get easier with time?!), I knew that spending his birthday in the office would result in Bad Things (for me, for my work and for my relationships with colleagues). The Mechanic and I went to the pub for dinner on Tuesday night, both too tired to consider cooking for ourselves, and over a drink The Mechanic informed me that there would be no lie in for me the next day as he had organised a surprise. I would need to get up and be out of the house with him by 8.45am.

Dad’s birthday dawned and The Mechanic got up and left for work before daybreak without waking me up. He returned at 8.30am and made me get up. To minimise disruption to his working day, he told me that I would have to drive to my surprise on my own behind his van (as he couldn’t take any more time off work to collect me later that morning). I followed his van along the road out of Market Town intrigued. He turned off at his friend’s house and I followed, thinking that he was just stopping in to see his friend quickly. In the car park, The Mechanic informed me that no, he wasn’t visiting his friend but we were here for my surprise.

His friend’s wife runs a health clinic from the house and The Mechanic had booked me in for an aromatherapy full body massage! He passed me the money for the treatment, got in his van and off he went.

Now, I’ve never had a full body massage before. The lady who did it gave me a wonderful back, neck and shoulder massage once so I knew it would be nice if that was anything to go by, but it was just amazing. And she wasn’t supposed to be in work: she has two small children and she always takes the half term holidays off, but having heard about my Dad and that it was his birthday, she came in just to give me the treatment. She chose lavender oil for relaxation, ylang ylang for its spirit lifting and chilling out qualities, and orange for distress and emotional shock. An hour and a half later, and I was almost floating.

It didn’t take away the sadness, but it made me realise that I am very lucky to have The Mechanic. Yay for The Mechanic.

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