The 20th anniversary of my dad David's death coincided with my 50th Test cap and for it to be my mum Janet's birthday, too, made it an emotional few days. It was not an easy week, being the Pink Test and my mum having had breast cancer twice.
As a young kid you stay up late to watch the Ashes, getting told off for not being in bed, and dream of making a hundred against Australia.
Get picked for an Ashes Test at Lord's and you know you're going to meet the Queen. She arrived before the start of our game against Australia in 2013 and we lined up for inspection like the household cavalry on Horse Guards Parade.
I've been through practices during which I've felt as though medieval torture would have been easier.
When I came into the England team I was always being asked whether I 'really' wanted to be a wicketkeeper. It was as though no one had noticed the work I'd already put in to make myself one.
In my head I'm talking all the time.
You know when you've hit a good shot. I use a bat that weighs two pounds and nine ounces, and it makes a reassuringly solid sound when I connect properly. The ball pings off the middle.
When my dad died, I was eight. Becky was seven. My mum had cancer, the first of two bouts that she's fought and beaten.
The place closest to my dad's heart, unequivocally his favourite, was Scarborough. To him it was the epitome of the English coast, postcard perfect.
Yorkshire knew how important Scarborough was for me. So I was awarded my county cap there in 2011. That first cap is one of the most precious things I own. The club didn't tell me that I'd be receiving it, but instead tipped off my mum, making sure she saw the presentation.
My dad is never far from my thoughts. A place, a game, an incident somewhere or an unexpected word from someone can trigger a memory, which then triggers another, and suddenly I'm thinking about him, if only for a minute or two.
I've learnt - and this pleases me - that my dad's cricketing life and my own will always be intertwined, even though I will finish far behind the number of appearances he made for Yorkshire and also his length of service at Headingley.
I was only ever briefly angry with my dad for leaving us. It happened shortly after his death, when things were at their darkest and the grief in me was raw and at its worst.
When I came into the Yorkshire academy I was christened Bluey almost immediately.
I look so much like my dad - same chin, same cheekbones, same forehead - and I play a little like him too. But I am my mother's son. I am who I am because of her.
My mum thinks I get my determination and resilience from my dad. I think it comes mostly from her.
Everyone who survives cancer knows the victory against it may only be temporary. You know eventually that you might have to fight all over again. Almost 15 years after my mum's first bout of cancer, a second bout occurred. This time she needed an operation.
No one saw me cry over my dad's death for almost nine years. I hid what I felt, bottling up my emotions so tightly that almost nothing leaked out.
With my dad gone, I made a resolution to myself. I would become the man of the house. Adulthood was still more than a decade away for me.
The great risk of being alive is always that something can happen to you - or to someone you dearly love - at any moment.
