We're celebrating Bernie's birthday as if she's here – now I know how she felt at the end

You could set your watch by it. Where there was a party there’d be Bernie, Irish dancing across the room. She couldn’t do it of course. But that didn’t stop her.

So on this week in my younger sister’s absence, someone will be channelling their best although this year clearly it’s not going to be me. Sorry, Bernie, you were a fabulous inspiration, but I’ve hit a wall (probably quite literally soon if my current wobbles continue).

We’ll be jigging to celebrate her birthday. She would have been 64.

October 17 should perhaps by rights be a sad day, but somehow it’s a lovely one. It remains Bernie’s birthday even though she hasn’t been around to jig for a long time now.

Each year we get together at my brother Brian’s and his wife Annie’s. There’s usually a mix of siblings and friends, and we raise a Vodka Mule, and have a laugh, maybe a pizza, play board games. Someone might sing – Bernie, never to be placed in the shadows by Whitney, usually opted for Run To You, and it was beautiful.

When she died she wrote a letter saying she wanted us to raise a glass on her birthday, specifically a Vodka Mule. Some of us are all for it – faithful Old Shep here naturally – and others aren’t, and that’s understandable. We all remember in different ways.

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I’ve been thinking so much about Bernie lately. Obviously she’s never far from my mind, but so often now I feel I understand what she went through towards the end. People tell me not to compare my with Bernie's, but the similarities are too striking.

It helps me to remember how fiercely dedicated to fun she remained right to the end. I remember just three weeks before her death going to stay with her and laughing. Even at the stickiness of the syringes filled with morphine I helped administer.

Once she asked me to lie on the bed with her and reached across to hold my hand – and even then we started laughing. She loved fun. So even when I’m at my lowest I think of her and smile.

Most of my hair has come out now and I’m going to have it cropped tight, but what would she say to my moping? Probably: “Oh, get a wig on it!”

I sometimes think about my own birthday when I’m gone, and I’d like people to celebrate too. I’d like them to laugh. Like Bernie, I don’t want them sobbing.

But although the Mules are good, it’ll be a pink gin and tonic for me, please. The only difference in my absence? They’ll just have to pay for their own dinner.