A man pushed a bicycle up the steep hill, the last leg of his journey after his night shift at the factory. The headlamp cut through the fogginess of the icy winter morning. Number 5 Argyle Street, Accrington, Lancashire. It was the only house in the terrace with its lights on.

‘Gina?’ he called out softly. Their three-year-old must be fast asleep. ‘Gina?’ he called again, just a little louder.

‘Toni, I think the baby is coming,’ his wife answered, whispering loudly.

He washed, his muscular arms rubbing his sturdy body, toweling himself dry quickly. He put on his brown striped suit, the one from Burtons with two pairs of trousers – the suit lasted longer that way. He picked up his son and knocked on the neighbor’s front door. They would look after him while he took his wife to the maternity home.

Rough Lee Maternity home, a Victorian structure, was a couple of miles away. The hours passed by and, just before midday, Gina pushed her baby into the world.

‘It’s a girl, healthy, 8 pounds 5 ounces,’ the nurse told Toni. ‘Visiting time: 4:00.’

A girl. He was happy. He wanted a girl. He walked back down the cobbled streets, past rows of terraced housing. People walked. Buses hardly ran on Sundays. Mill sheds, mine chimneys, church spires shaped the skyline; cotton, coal and religion crowded into this northern English Pennine valley town surrounded by wilderness.

Sunday. The shops were closed. Flowers? February. If it were summer he could cut flowers from his own garden, but there was nothing there to cut now. The cemetery. That’s it, on the other side of town, the only place you could buy flowers on a Sunday. He’d never been there.

He’s an immigrant, a World War II displaced person living in the United Kingdom. His ancestors are buried in Poland and Gina’s in the Czech Republic. If he hurried he’d just make it, enough time to check in on his son, walk to the cemetery and get back to the maternity ward by 4:00.

The father of a newborn girl – will she have his brown flecked eyes, or the piercing blue eyes of Gina’s family? He couldn’t yet know. He looked at what was on sale, chose pink tulips and returned down into the valley, crossing the town center and up to the other side.

He entered the ward. Eight women, eight healthy babies. The mothers’ faces shone with happiness, relief, and mystery. It was the shadows under their eyes that told the tale of the strain of pregnancy and birth-giving.

‘Toni. She’s the only girl born here today. There are seven boys,’ murmured Gina, ‘and she’s a Sunday’s child of a Sunday’s child.’

A nurse brought a vase filled with water, as well as sugar and salt. She pricked the base of the tulip heads with a needle, so they’d breathe more easily as they opened. Gina was the only woman in the ward who had fresh flowers that winter Sunday afternoon. She felt loved and special.

This is my mother’s story of her giving birth to me, Helena Maria, and my father’s thoughtfulness on that day. Pink tulips took on a special significance in our family.

I used to think it quirky that my dad walked to the cemetery immediately after my birth. Now I think of it as auspicious that his newborn child – me – would make several life choices which meant that death and dying became a consistent life-partner.