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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It Has Been Four Months

Dad - some thoughts written over the fourth month without you

The night you died, when the paramedics were working on you, I didn’t say a Hail Mary for you. I couldn’t bear to say “pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death,” because that felt like I was expecting you to die. 

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The sign of peace made me cry today. I’ll never get to feel your hand in mine again, or see you laugh at the kids nodding their peace to us from the altar. 

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I heard a tawny owl outside when I was going to bed. Remember making owl sounds? And taking us out to listen to the owls when we couldn’t sleep?

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The day you died I had bought a tube filled with tiny plastic ducks. I was going to hide them round your house. I knew you would appreciate the silliness of it. What do I do now?

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Another Sunday. We didn’t get to Mass because we were celebrating Geoff’s birthday, and yet I still felt the same sadness I feel every Sunday. I thought it was about missing you being next to me in church, but there’s something more bone deep than that. It was the Treacle Market today too, and we weren’t there. That’s the fourth one since I last saw you. I think Sundays will always be my hardest day. 

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Sometimes I try to pretend you’re not dead. That you’re just busy, or I’m not seeing you because we’re off doing something without you. Like this weekend. You wouldn’t have been there anyway, so maybe I could enjoy it and imagine seeing you when we’re back. But there was a pain around me the whole time. I made sure to take a good photo of Chris with his Dad. I’m sad that I don’t have more photos of me with you. Plenty of you, plenty of you with the kids, but I was the one taking the photos. Goodbyes are so much harder now too. Every parting is coloured by the thought that this might be the last time and the need to make it count. How am I supposed to live like this?

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I hope my grief for you never makes Chris feel inadequate. I’m so grateful for him. And so proud of him. Everything he’s done, since he held your hand when you died and held the phone to your ear so I could tell you I love you, every grief he’s experienced along with me. I am so blessed to have had a very good Dad and to have a very good husband. He loved you very much too. 

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I went to the church website to see if I could find a recording of the last time we were at Mass together. I wanted to see if I could hear you singing louder than everyone else. I hoped to see you walking up to communion. Just the back of your head. But those recordings are gone. You don’t exist there anymore. Always looking for you. Never finding you. 

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I understand Easter Saturday now. That silence. The waiting. You’ve gone home, and we have to wait a bit longer. I wouldn’t bring you back. That wouldn’t be fair. 

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How lucky am I that I had 42 years of you? Sometimes I wonder if I really have the right to be so sad when other people have lost their people after much less time. I have 42 years of love and laughter and memories. But it’s so hard to know I won’t make any more with you. 

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We planted flowers on your grave today, for Easter. Tiny narcissi, and tulip bulbs. Anna reminded us you don’t like tulips. And then it started to hail! Guess you really don’t like them!!

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We buried Jan today. So different from your funeral, but we celebrated her life and shared our love. 3 funerals this year, all different, and yet all 3 for people who shouldn’t have gone home so soon. What now? Time to focus on grief? 

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I just thought about church tomorrow morning, and had an image of standing outside chatting with my Dad after Mass, watching you with the kids, and then I remembered you won’t be there. Like a punch to the gut. 

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The utter cruelty of being left behind.

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Chris was just remembering that you liked instant coffee. What a funny thing to remember. I wonder why? Was it just the lack of faff? Or did you really prefer the taste?

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I feel like I’m carrying something really heavy inside of me. 

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The world itself is such a beautiful place. The earth keeps turning. The sun rises and sets. New life is springing up everywhere. Buds, bees, baby lambs. Flowers bloom, trees communicate, elephants and crows remember. But I am stuck, not enjoying any of it. I need to not feel trapped in sadness all of the time. But that idea also scares me. If I don’t feel sad all the time was I ever really sad about losing my Dad? How can that sadness end if it’s real? 

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I’ve stopped wearing lipstick. Is that weird? Am I not sad if I wear lipstick?

I have only dressed up nicely four times since my Dad died. Christmas Eve, because I was reading at Mass and I didn’t know how to step out of the plan I had already made. And then for the three funerals. It’s been leggings and jumpers every single other day. Comfort, warmth, simplicity. 

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I wonder why mourning clothes went out of fashion. Wouldn’t it be helpful to look at someone and know that they are likely to be sad? To be able to be aware of others’ grief without them having to tell you?

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I stopped doing my daily thankful posts when you died. I haven’t felt thankful, and everything has been so mixed up with grief. But here are some things that have given me a little joy over the past few days:

• Watching The Grand Budapest Hotel.
• The roast pork and stuffing sandwich I had for tea tonight that I had been looking forward to all day. 
• A video of the baby blowing raspberries that Anna sent me. That little fellow has been a godsend to us.
• Making Sunday lunch with Chris. 
• Seeing Bertie show off an amazing move he’s learning at street dance. 

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Another month gone. It’s getting harder. Everything is different now. Every activity, every place, every relationship. All coloured by the hand of grief. I’m so tired of it. I miss you.

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Bread

Bread. 

Everyday. 

Every day. 

Every meal. 

Bread is life. 

Love baked fresh every morning. 

Dusty arms kneading

Dough stretching, growing, living

On this night it is unleavened. 

Our ancestors in haste

Their journey long, urgent. 

No time to rise. 

With bread we remember. 

That he would use bread

To explain

To teach

To love

Makes perfect sense. 

We know bread. 

We understand it. 

Bread. 

Every day. 

Every meal. 

Bread of Life. 

Mercy made fresh every morning. 

Forgiving arms outstretched 

Love rising, growing, living. 

On this night it is raised

Bread from Heaven

Maker, not made

Blessed

Broken

Shared

With bread we remember.

©️Laura Moore 2019

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