It Has Been Seven Months

Dad - some thoughts written over the seventh month without you

I wish I was “up on the roof” with you. There’s so much turmoil here. 

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I’m beginning to recognise the cycles of my grief now. A few days, maybe a week or so, of quiet sadness, numbness, like trudging through tar, memories, but no tears. Then something will occur to me. And an involuntary sob will escape. And then the days of crying hit. Every thought, every memory, every reminder of what we will miss with you, sets me off again. And then it slows again. Calm for a bit, before a wave of re-realisation. I feel it physically move through my body, and then it’s like I’ve been punched in the stomach. Nausea. Not crying for this part. Just pain and fatigue. And back to the quiet. Recognising the cycle doesn’t make it easier, but it reminds me that each way of feeling and being is normal. 

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Why do we bother to pray? Every time I pray for healing, the people I care about die. My prayers haven’t saved a single person. 

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“IT’S NOT THE DARKNESS I MIND. IT’S THE HOPE.”

— Death, Hogfather - Terry Pratchett

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I thought about you a lot today. Wept into the cupcakes I was baking for J and Bertie’s joint party. Railed at God while I washed my hair. Not just for you, but for Hayley, and Rick, and Susan, Bex, and Uncle Brian, and now David is so poorly. You are praying up there, aren’t you? You need to. Gather everyone and pray for his healing. If there’s one thing this world doesn’t need more of, it’s fatherless children. 

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When I got into the car to go to Mass, Radio 2 was on and playing a song I’ve never heard before. Father and Daughter by Paul Simon. What a beautiful song. It felt like you were singing to me. “There could never be a father who loved his daughter more than I love you.” I miss you. 

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I stood and watched the grasses in the garden this evening. At least six different types, just gently dancing in the breeze. A butterfly fluttering around and settling on the grass. Either a meadow brown or a small copper - it was a little too far away to see properly. It was so calm, so peaceful. And looking round the garden I saw the honeysuckle you gave me, the holly that managed to grow from a branch you brought home from a walk with the children, and the Norfolk quaking grasses you and Mum brought back from Grandad’s garden. Reminders of you everywhere. 

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David died. I’m sure you’re already having a great old time up there with him. Us? We’re heartbroken. 

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If you were here what would say about all this? I know you believed with such deep certainty in Heaven and the power of prayer and in being Jesus to those you met. But what would you have told me about all this sadness? Grief is for us, I know. But how are we supposed to keep going in this world of pain and violence and tears? It’s just endless. I wish you were here, even just to feel your peaceful confidence. 

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I feel too sad to write. I can’t share the things I want to say. 

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When you died, I couldn’t write. Only short sentences. Tiny scraps of memories. I was getting better at it again, able to write for longer. But I feel like I’m back at that point again. Compound grief is shit. 

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I am the chair for others’ grief again. Exhausting. 

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Bea and I are at the hair salon for her big haircut. Shakira’s Hips Don’t Lie has just come on. It’s good of you to be here with us. I bet you’re so proud of her. Nearly 24” of hair to donate and she’s raised nearly £800. 

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We sat in your yarden, well, just Mum’s now, I suppose. She’s calling it your Memorial Garden, for Humanity & Not Hostility. She’s done a lot of work in it. It’s lovely. But everything beautiful is touched by sadness. It makes me think we should be doing something big, in your name, but thats not how you did things. If everyone could just do small kind things with big love and a bit of silliness how much more wonderful this world could be.

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Seven months without you. It’s constantly getting harder. So few people checking in now. The stalwart few will be forever etched in my heart. The sheer love I feel from them. Grief is so lonely, particularly when you’re not very good at talking about things. I feel most at peace when I’m watching the bees and butterflies in our garden. We even had a dragonfly the other day. It makes me feel you’re here. 

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It Has Been Six Months

Dad - some thoughts written over the sixth month without you

We had our first cheesecake party without you. Mum put in a sterling effort and brought along your famous savoury cheesecake. We had more guests than ever before. The table was heaving. You were missed. We had the Middlesbrough match playing on the telly, because, as Sophie said, you would have been watching it anyway. It was a typical Boro match, but you know that. I’m fairly certain you had a hand in them getting to the playoff final anyway! Saint Anthony of Middlesbrough, pray for me.

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Good grief - it’s been so hot! We went to a wedding in 30° heat. The sweat! And all I kept thinking was how we’d walked around the Eden Project last year, in our coolest clothing, while you were wearing vest, shirt, jumper and jacket, and didn’t break a sweat. 

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I haven’t cried for a few days. We’ve been so busy. I think I’m disassociating. I’m prepared this time; it’s happened every month since you left. The tears will come back with a vengeance. 

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All the business emails are coming through with their questions about whether we want to receive their Father’s Day marketing emails or not. As if avoiding being advertised at will help me not get sad about Father’s Day. I’m already aware of it looming up ahead, on the 6 month anniversary of your death, the solstice, the longest day of the year. What is it like to celebrate Father’s Day without a father? I never thought to ask you. 

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My ear is blocked and I can’t hear out of it. I was sat waiting for everyone at the Treacle Market. Yes, another one without you. In the market place a jazz band were playing. Because I can’t hear properly the music sounded like I was in a bubble and it was outside. And if that doesn’t describe grief, I’m not sure how else to describe it. Everything is still going on outside, but I’m trapped in this bubble of sadness and confusion, and I can’t join in. It’s exhausting. And so lonely. Even when we’re sad together, none of us are feeling the same things. 

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Why aren’t you here when I need you?

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Our culture around grief is so strange. My Dad died and basically the first thing I did was cook tea for the kids. And I haven’t stopped since. No one is coming to take my responsibilities away so I can curl up in a ball and cry. Five and a half months of cooking, washing, cleaning, teaching, tidying, parenting, because who else will do it if I stop to grieve. I have to chop vegetables through tears and hang up laundry full of rage. Put my little “ok” mask on while I get on with fulfilling expectations. 

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The kids are being horrible to each other at the moment. I’m really struggling with them. You used to come round when they were like this, keep me company, lift us all out of the hole for a bit. A reset. All you needed was a cup of coffee, a phone charger, and your slippers, and you entertained everyone, talked with me about telly or your recent filming work or something interesting one of us had read. I wasn’t hosting, or entertaining. Your visits required no stress or effort on my part. We were just comfortable and you were a comfort. I miss you so much.

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I found an avocado today that had the tiniest stone in it. South African, by the way, not Israeli, you’ll be pleased to know. Maybe they’ve finally cracked it! More avocado than pip. Sorry you weren’t here to see it. 

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It’s Vin Garbutt’s anniversary today. I’m listening to his music and remembering you playing it to us. I’m so glad I got to go and see him with you in Bedford when we did. I’ve realised so much of my politics and morals and social ethics come from those songs. Thank you. I hope you two are having fun up there. I can’t imagine you won’t be!

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You were in my dream last night. It just felt normal. You were just there, not a main part of it or anything. We were all eating dinner, I think, discussing how long a pie needed cooking for. It wasn’t exciting. Just ordinary. And we were talking about what to do on our holiday. But we all knew you weren’t coming. You were given the job of deciding what we could do. You were always so excited about our holidays. Last year you were down that way beforehand - I don’t remember why - and you scouted out interesting places and checked out our cottage. It’s going to be so strange this year. 

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Chris is away and I’m lonely and sad. You always came to visit when he was away. I can’t sleep, so I just read through our WhatsApp messages. Nothing deep. Just comfortable again. A bit silly. Boring stuff. TV recommendations. Updates on your Kenyans. Requests for the kids’ wish lists. Funny photos. I miss knowing you’re just on the other end of the phone. 

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I was feeling a bit lost and useless really, then one of your messages to me reminded me of who I am and how proud you are of me. Thank you. 

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I cannot get through an episode of Who Do You Think You Are without crying. All those moments where I wanted to talk to you about what they found out. Questions I want to ask you about our own history. You were always excited to talk about that show. 

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Bertie made his First Holy Communion today. He was so excited and proud. The only one of my children’s Communions you haven’t been at. It was beautiful. It’s the feast of St Anthony though, which feels important to me. A sacrament on your saint’s feast day. And Chris wore one of your jackets. Anna brought her lock of your hair too. You were there in all sorts of ways, not least when we took communion and joined with the Communion of saints. I know you were praying for Bertie and all of us. I found a photo of you on, what I assume was your First Holy Communion. I think Bertie looks a lot like you.

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It’s the run up to Father’s Day, which I thought would be a hard few days, but I’ve been in the numbness again. No tears, just a feeling of malaise and distance. It’s so tiring being sad all the time. 

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I miss you so much. 

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Father’s Day. Solstice. The longest day. Exactly six months since you left us. I don’t really know what to write. We had a good day, but I was so constantly aware that you weren’t there. Can’t avoid Father’s Day when I have the father of my own children here. They’ve made such lovely cards and given him great gifts. 

I’ve made you a Father’s Day card. Is that strange? If grief is love with nowhere to go, then I have to channel it somewhere, don’t I. What would I have bought for you if you were still here? Another Bob Mortimer book probably. Or a theatre voucher. I stopped buying you wine - didn’t want to encourage all that! But I brought you some today. Poured a glass on your grave for you. And a white rabbit too, like Harvey.

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There are poppies growing on your grave, and one cornflower. 

~

I think that writing about my grief is helping me, and I hope that sharing it here might help someone else one day. But if nothing else, it is keeping you here. Like Terry Pratchett wrote in Reaper Man: 

“No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away, until the clock wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone’s life is only the core of their actual existence.”

And in Going Postal: 

“Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?”

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It Has Been Five Months

Dad - some thoughts written over the fifth month without you

The shower just broke. I only replaced it the other week. Nearly pushed me to the edge. It’s ridiculous. It’s a fucking shower, and I’m sobbing on my bed, because it’s not about the shower at all, is it.

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I keep glimpsing you out of the corner of my eye. 

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We had pasties today and laughed when we remembered eating pasties in Padstow with you last year. 

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Sometimes I wonder if you’re really gone. When I look at photos of you and see you laughing, with that twinkle in your eye. How does someone with so much life in them suddenly stop being here?

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I only really cry when everything is quiet. 

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I went in the sea today. It was so cold. I remembered what you said about relaxing your muscles when it’s cold and it was so much more manageable. I went up to my neck. Standing there in the cold sea, my limbs going numb, with the waves gently rocking me, was so soothing. Thank you for helping me to do that. 

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I talked about you with a couple of people today. Both times I was telling stories about you, good memories, and I started to cry. It’s funny - people think they’ve made me sad, but I was already sad. They’ve actually allowed me to feel my feelings and I’m grateful for that. And being able to speak about you is so good. 

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I finished The Satsuma Complex today. I wish you’d read it when I bought it for you, instead of leaving it and not finishing it before you died. Rude. I wish I could have borrowed it off you and we could have talked about it when I returned it. Instead, I’m sat here sobbing and hugging a book that was meant to be yours forever, with my birthday wishes to you written in the front. I miss you so much!

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I miss how fun you are. No one else is as fun. It’s truly miserable without you. 

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I’m tired of doing things and trying to enjoy myself and pretending to have fun, when what I really want to do is shout at everyone, “Don’t you know my Dad died?!” Pretending to be fine so I don’t upset other people is exhausting. 

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Someone was unkind to me, and it made me miss you even more, but now I think about it and I know if I’d told you about it, you would have laughed at what they said and made me see the ridiculousness of it. I’m going to try to do that more. 

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There was a sketch on SNL that would have made you laugh. I remember being at the market with you and you wondered whether market traders spoke that way at home. This sketch was about auctioneers at home and it was just like that. I hate the feeling when I’m about to say, “Dad will like this,” and then remember I can’t send it to you. Like being punched in the stomach. 

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There are lots of photos of me taken by you. But so few of the two of us together. You were the photographer when I was young. With your proper camera. When I left home we didn’t have cameras in our phones. Selfies weren’t a big thing. I’d only been using the internet for a couple of years. It wasn’t until just before Chris and I got married that I got a smartphone, and we didn’t live close enough to be taking photos together. Pictures of us at the wedding, of course. And then babies started arriving and I have so many pictures of you cuddling them, playing with them, wearing silly hats with them. But still, barely any of you with me. Maybe if I had been born a few years later I would have taken those selfies. It seems silly. People have loved their Dads for centuries without having pictures of themselves together, but sometimes I feel like people will wonder why there are so few of us together. 

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Today was a crying day. I just couldn’t stop. You shouldn’t have died.

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Five months without you. It feels like yesterday and forever at the same time. It’s getting harder the longer we’ve been without you. Can we go back now? Have you back now? The future is stretching out ahead and it looks bleak.

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