Category Archives: Young widow

SAS of the NHS

Posted in Bereavement, Uncategorized, Young widow by
Paramedics (film)

Paramedics (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What is it about ambulances? You wait all your life to call one and then two come at once.

They did the night M died, anyway. They blue-lighted from two different hospitals and converged on the road in front of my Mother’s house. A crack-team of paramedics leapt across the lawn through the darkness, loaded up with an armoury of life-saving equipment – the SAS of the NHS. In my panic, I was unable to unlock the front door (M had locked it not half an hour before and put the key somewhere which eluded me).

‘They need to come round the back!’ I yelled at the voice on the phone.

In retrospect, I think I knew M was dead. The pupils in His unblinking, chocolate-brown eyes were shot, and fixed on a point beyond me. He had no pulse. His face was plum-coloured and doughy. But as they pounded up the stairs into the bedroom where He lay, somehow I believed this crack-team would bring Him round. I honestly did. I had been doing CPR for twenty minutes on a dead man, but didn’t allow myself to believe it was the end.

So when they filed down the stairs after forty minutes, grim-faced and exhausted, and one of them uttered the words: “M’s died”, you’ll forgive me for my response. “Right,” I said. “Right.”

Suddenly, inexplicably, I felt frightened of the body upstairs. Did I want to see Him? No. (I regret that response. A chance for a last cuddle before He went truly cold). I asked the paramedics to stay until the police arrived. And then I asked the police to stay until the undertaker arrived. I turned the television on loud (Match of the Day) as they removed Him from the house.

My Mother and I clung to each other in the sheets He died in that night. ‘Tell me this is a dream,’ I pleaded with her. She said, ‘I’m afraid it’s not.’

I slept fitfully and had strange dreams. But I slept, nonetheless. Then I woke, and He wasn’t there.

Housedust

Posted in Bereavement, Uncategorized, Young widow by

An old friend sent me a book of poetry after M died entitled ‘Staying Alive’ (ed: Neil Astley). I would recommend it for anyone who is on this, or any similar journey. Further to yesterday’s post about the search for M’s DNA, I found the short poem below which gave me some reassurance that I wasn’t going completely barking. Whilst the poet doesn’t mention looking for errant pubic hairs (clearly that’s just me), she describes the comfort to be found in the minutiae far better than I could.

            Four Years

The smell of him went soon

from all his shirts.

I sent them for jumble,

and the sweaters and suits.

The shoes

held more of him; he was printed

into his shoes. I did not burn

or throw or give them away.

Time has denatured them now.

Nothing left.

There will never be

a hair of his in a comb.

But I want to believe that in the shifting housedust

minute presences still drift:

an eyelash,

a hard crescent cut from a fingernail,

that sometimes

between the folds of a curtain

or the covers of a book

I touch

a flake of his skin.

Pamela Gillilan

The Village People

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Geordie Schooner

Geordie Schooner (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m flying to the States next week. Ostensibly it’s a research trip for my doctorate, but there’ll be plenty of opportunities for fun too – I’ve been invited to a Gatsby-style cocktail party in The Hamptons by my host family for Chrissakes! How many Geordie lasses can attest to that?

The problem is – I don’t want to go. I’ve always been a nervous flyer, but this time, it’s not just about the flight.

After M died, we, as a family, had an irrepressible urge to ‘close ranks’. We didn’t like to be apart for too long – one would peel off to do a provisions run, but was always back within the hour. People left food parcels on the doorstep, but we turned friends away, daubing a metaphorical plague cross on the door.

It was a  strange existence, and to a degree, it persists. I am always relieved to be heading back to the village, despite its miserable microclimate (it brings a whole new meaning to 50 Shades of Grey) and its controversial dog shit problem (who IS that persistent offender?) A lightness of being comes over me when I drive back up the hill from the sunshine into the mist towards my house. The village and its people envelop my daughter and me in their protective cocoon, and leaving it feels dizzying and unsafe. Crossing the road into the next village sometimes feels insurmountable – how am I ever going to cross the Atlantic?

So I’m breaking the trip down into small, more manageable pieces. Pack bag – check. Get to airport – check. Order large gin and tonic in departure lounge – check. It’s the moment I realise I’m in the seat next to Leslie Nielson in Airplane that I’ll frantically disembark for the grey, grey mist of home.

Sober adjunct to last night’s drunken post

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Rioja

Rioja (Photo credit: e_calamar)

I was about to delete last night’s Rioja-fuelled post fearing that it was badly-written, moronic drivel (Christ, maybe that woman was right after all), but someone commented on it which made me think that it had obviously resonated somewhere out in the ether.

What I wanted to add was that whilst anniversaries register as a minor blip on the flatline of emotions since M’s death, it is the milestones reached by my daughter which cause it to zigzag out of control. She is turning 5 and I want Him to see it. She reads her first sentence and I want Him to hear it.

And with each milestone that passes, her memory of Him recedes. Photographs and keepsakes are important, but she won’t remember what it felt like to have her hand curled around His.

Nurse, send in the crash team, quick!

Rockin’ in the free world?

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Code of Conduct

Code of Conduct (Photo credit: Alan Perryman)

I’m new to the blogging game, but I do find writing about M and my subsequent life after his death to be therapeutic. It even crossed my mind that by sharing my thoughts and experiences I  might find some kindred spirits out there in the ether – which is why I recently  submitted a link to my blog to one of the only online widow’s support forums, and one which has given me great comfort since my loss.

It would appear, however, that I was wrong.  Unwittingly, I was in breach of the site’s code of conduct for posting the link – an accusation I accept and can only apologise for. However when I received the following email from the site’s founder, I’ll confess I reached my for dictionary for a definition of the word ‘support’ :
“I have just removed  your post from my website.  I didn’t set up Merrywidow to promote  badly-written blogs by people who don’t even have the courage to use their own name, but, judging by the response you got, I’m not surprised you wanted to  remain anonymous.  Don’t bother trying to post again, as you have been  banned from the site, and next time you want to sully a messageboard with  moronic drivel, try picking one with a readership with a lower IQ.”
I was clearly unaware that when  it comes to writing about the loss of a husband there is a strict code of  conduct that must be upheld, a standard not only of content but of writing which the site’s founder monitors assiduously (presumably to protect the sensibilities of  her  many readers and contributors). For this, we must be grateful. God forbid that  anyone, such as myself, should infringe these boundaries and, by doing so,  express their grief in their own terms.
Still, I shall continue to plough my own furrow – an outcast in widowhood.  My only consolation is that it is what M would have wanted, even if does the site’s founder does not.

A Better Place

Posted in Bereavement, Uncategorized, Young widow by
At the Crossroads of Bullshit

At the Crossroads of Bullshit (Photo credit: Matt Niemi)

Talking to the spirit world has come a long way from the days when we used to set up a Ouija board in my mate’s bedroom and shout ‘whooooo!’ at each other through the darkness. Last night, some friends and I went to see a well-known Spirit Medium ‘On Tour’. I had considered seeing a Medium in the early days after M died, but my innate cynicism always stopped me making the call. But as we fought our way through the crowds and the merchandise to our seats, I’ll confess I was feeling trepidation. Whilst I like to think I have no truck with this sort of nonsense, part of me was thinking…”What if M shows up? And if He does, what’s He going to say about The Plumber?”

The show opened with a televised montage of the work the Medium had done – tearful women, stoic men, Danny Dyer looking bemused – then she came on stage to rousing applause and Belinda Carlisle’s ‘Heaven is a Place on Earth’.

Shortly afterwards, Don was with us. His wobbly-legged family stood up. The Medium got a waft of chips – yes, Don had indeed loved chips. He was right here, on stage, descended especially from that great chip shop in sky to tell them that he loved them and that he was OK. The spirits were lining up after that, battling for supremacy over the Medium’s spook radar. She was fighting them off – ‘Irene, love, I’m coming to you, wait your  turn!’ Baby Daniel took his cue and a couple stood up. Further probing revealed He wasn’t their Baby Daniel after all. No amount of shoehorning of dates and names could make it so. They sat down, distraught.

As the show progressed, I found my trepidation waning. Although the Medium undoubtedly gave hope and comfort to some, I realised M was not going to appear. Certainly not on stage at the Sunderland Empire anyway. Since He died, I have not felt him anywhere, not sensed his presence watching over us. And for me, that is comfort – the thought of Him roaming about an afterlife, alone, (or perhaps with Whitney Houston, who died on the same day), is too much to bear. The thought of Him having gone on to a ‘better place’ is anathema to me: for where could be better for Him to be than here with us?

Having said all that, perhaps my evening was subject to a little divine intervention. Shortly after leaving the theatre, I was dumped by The Plumber via text. M is probably on his cloud, beaming.