Tag Archives: Online Writing

Every girl’s dream

Posted in Bereavement Advice and Support, Uncategorized by
Pink_Squirrel_by_NayruAsukei-vi

credit: zendirtzendust.wordpress.com

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a botanist and marry Jordan from New Kids on the Block.

Actually, the botanist thing was just a smoke-screen. I mainly wanted to marry Jordan from New Kids on the Block.

My daughter told me yesterday that she wants to be a squirrel when she grows up. Heady dreams for a five-year-old, but who am I to burst her bubble?

“Red or brown?” I asked.

She looked at me as if I’d just shit on the table. “Pink.”

Dreams change. For me, Jordan Knight was usurped when I discovered real, live men who didn’t sing everything in falsetto and wear their hair in a wisp.

Botany was replaced by the realisation that I had left University with an entirely use-free degree and a beer gut, and at this point any job would be a bonus.

Many of my grown-up dreams died along with my husband though. I wanted another baby, for example; I wanted a long and happy marriage. And we had shared dreams, as couples do. We wanted to see the cherry blossoms in Kyoto together, to move to France, to finally finish the Mad Men complete series box set after months of concerted viewing.

But in all that, I don’t ever recall envisioning myself as a pill-popping, thirty-eight-year-old widow with a small child and a drink problem. Unlike Don Draper, it was never part of the plan.

Not content with all its other insults, that bastard Widowhood blunders in and steals your dreams too.

Blog North Awards

Posted in Bereavement Advice and Support, Uncategorized by
Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Contrary to evidence suggested by Queen Victoria’s face, widows aren’t always miserable.

We smile. We laugh. In fact, occasionally we have moments of throw-your-corset-off, lift-your-shroud, unashamed glee.

Call me a phony widow, but I have had two such moments this week. Yes, two! My corset is swinging from the chandelier as we speak!

The moment I want to mention just now is the fact that this blog has been shortlisted in the Blog North Awards.

I’m not sure what I might win, aside from the dubious accolade of being an expert in blabbing about my reckless life since the death of my husband, but the public vote is open until Tuesday 1st October.

Please vote, if you see fit. You can do so here: http://www.blognorthawards.com/2013-shortlist.

If not – One is not amused.

Things You Don’t Tell Your Mother

Posted in Bereavement, Family, Uncategorized by

There are certain things you don’t tell your mother.

DSC03356

Keeping me at arm’s length with a broccoli floret

Like how, when you were seventeen, you crashed her car into the gatepost while she was away in France and had it fixed out of your savings before she came back.

Or owning up to the true extent of what you got up to at University, and how little of it involved academic study.

Even now, close as we are, there are things I don’t tell my Mother. Partly to save her brow from further angst-incurred furrowing, but also because I have good friends and a counsellor with whom I ‘talk out’ my fruitier escapades.

Of course, when it comes to my own daughter, I like to think she does, and will, tell me everything.

Being five-years-old, this currently involves information about her latest bowel evacuation and news that she doesn’t like broccoli, (although she did tell me the Great Fire of London was in 1666 the other day, which really was news to me).

One thing she doesn’t discuss with me though, or even mention much these days, is Daddy. And I don’t push it, because I might cry and not stop, and she might end up as she usually does, wiping my tears and telling me everything will be OK.

I hadn’t thought much about this until I dropped her off at school this morning and her teacher asked for a ‘quiet word’.

Seems she’s been mentioning Him a lot at school. In the dinner hall. In assembly. She’s confided in staff that she’s sad that her daddy is dead and that she misses Him. She has sought comfort in the arms of teachers and dinner ladies.

I spent the rest of the morning ulcerating about this particular conversation starter. Arguably the most important and interesting of conversation starters for us to elaborate on, yet she keeps me at arm’s length with a broccoli floret.

She witnessed His death. She continues to witness the fall-out from His death. So why hasn’t she sought comfort from me?

Perhaps she’s trying to save my brow from further furrowing too.

Ways to spend an idle moment

Posted in Bereavement by
Wobbly-Headed Bob resolves to commit suicide.

Wobbly-Headed Bob resolves to commit suicide. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I love catastrophising, me. It’s one of my favourite pastimes. If my molars aren’t clamped together in angst, there’s something wrong.

Furthermore, I like nothing more than spending an idle moment picturing myself receiving bad news. Before Mark’s death, the worst combination of words anyone could have said to me were: “Mark is dead.”

In my reverie, on receiving this news, I saw myself, a sprawling, dribbling mess on the floor, unable to speak or move. I wept and wailed, pummelled my fists against my chest, and implored sweet Satan to explain why he had inflicted such sorrow upon my house.

Sometimes in my reverie I even went so far as to throw myself into the grave alongside my beloved, but that was only during a particularly tedious Powerpoint.

One thing I never envisioned myself doing though was looking at the stout little paramedic who delivered those very words and saying: “Right.”

I honestly did. I said: “Right.”

And then I made a cup of tea.

The reason I mention it is because last night I watched a documentary about the murder of Anni Dewani. Her husband, Shrien, is implicated in the death and whilst I have no idea whether he did it or not, a piece of footage was shown in which we see his reaction when he heard the news that she’d been found dead.

He is in a hotel corridor when he takes the blood-chilling call. Minutes later he is seen holding his hands up to his face and is led into his hotel room to be given a sedative. Then an hour later, he is seen prowling the hotel corridor on the phone to a friend, laughing and joking. What kind of maniacal psychopath would be LAUGHING after hearing his wife had been found dead? Surely that fucker wears guilt like a shroud!

Thing is, when I received that dreaded news, I was a dot-eyed, blank-faced caricature of what I always envisioned I’d be when faced with a statement of this magnitude. I may have laughed. I definitely drank. I didn’t, though, as I recall, cry. Not for a few days anyway. I didn’t break down and I didn’t commit suicide.

What this says about the Dewani murder I don’t know.

All I’m saying is don’t judge a griever by their laughter.

The greying boxer shorts with the hole in the crotch and other pressing issues

Posted in Bereavement, Uncategorized by

‘What should I do with the ashes?’

Him, her, me. Allegedly.

Him, her, me. Allegedly.

‘Does my daughter need counselling?’

‘Should I keep those rank, greying boxer shorts with the hole in the crotch that I found at the bottom of the washing basket after He died?’

The scope of the questions to be faced after the death of a spouse is relentless and seemingly without limitation. Which is probably why many bereaved partners choose to ignore them and drink alcohol instead.

Yesterday I found myself face-to-face with a decision I took in the immediate aftermath of Mark’s death and as per, I’ve spent the past 24 hours in a purgatory of self-interrogation.

It started with an innocent observation by a six-year-old child I was in the process of teaching. Six-year-old children tend to scrutinise adults from the head down, and this little girl was no exception.

“Are those your wedding rings?” she asked, pointing at the pendant swinging from my neck.

“Yes.”

“My gran wears her wedding rings around her neck, but just on a chain. Not like THAT.”

“Does she?”

“She did it after me granda died. Why have you got yours like that?”

On this occasion the bell went and I was saved from having to explain that, like dear granda, my husband was dead, but I decided to have our rings welded together and an emerald fitted between the two to represent our daughter (it’s her birthstone).

And in a further adulteration of our wedding bands, I had the inside of my husband’s ring engraved with the words: ‘MLB – you complete me’.

And to add more insult to injury, the jeweller had renewed the rhodium plating, thus eliminating all trace of it ever having been worn by my husband. I might as well have selected one from the display cabinet and been done with it.

Why had I done this? Why hadn’t I kept it, like granda’s ring, with its scratches and its DNA, on a chain alongside the locket which holds Mark’s hair?

At the time I convinced myself that by creating a whole new piece of jewellery it would somehow help me to come to terms with the grave new symbolism of the bands we had exchanged just under six years previously.

But yesterday, I faltered under questioning and now I’m not so sure.

Gypsy Rose Lie

Posted in Bereavement Advice and Support, Uncategorized by
The Crystal Ball

The Crystal Ball (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Perhaps I should have known better than to seek guidance from a palm reader, but when your husband crashes out of your life without warning on a Saturday just before Take Me Out, you find yourself willing to believe any old crackpot in a caravan with a crystal ball.

Especially when you’re three sheets to the wind at a music festival and she’s promising to give you hope in exchange for ten quid.

So there I was this weekend, sitting in a caravan with an alleged descendant of Gypsy Rose Lee, palms facing skyward (wedding rings back in place – just to test her!), anxiously awaiting delivery of a message from Mark. Surely if He was going to communicate, it would be at a music festival, through the medium of this craggy-faced crone?

She held my hands and scrutinised them. “Your gentleman loves you very much…”

“Yes? Yes?”

“You are very happy together…”

“…Yes…”

“You’re going to experience a rocky patch over Christmas, but you’ll soon be back on track…”

I would have scarpered right then, but her butch bouncer guarded the exit like a rabid pit-bull. Instead I found myself, two minutes and a tonne more bullshit later, crossing her palm with my well-earned tenner. The tears in my eyes were a mixture of dejection and frustration at myself for having been taken in.

Problem is, I would pay it all over again for someone to alleviate the deafening silence of this void. Grief seems to wring every last ounce of logic out of you, leaving you vulnerable to any old charlatan who claims they can bring you closer to your dearly departed.

So look into your crystal ball and lie to me. Tell me anything. Just don’t let me believe this is the end.

An Acceptance Speech

Posted in Bereavement Advice and Support by
Bingo

Bingo (Photo credit: Gerry Dincher)

Ten years ago I undertook a job within local government.

Along with the endless supply of cakes and people named Kevin came a whole new vocabulary.

‘Thought-shower’. ‘Blue-sky thinking’. ‘Silo-working’. It was Bullshit Bingo on a County-wide scale. It took some getting used to, but in the end I acquiesced and heard myself one day in a meeting uttering the words; “We must strive for a multi-agency approach in order to push the envelope further…’. That may have been the day I handed in my notice.

Like any new arena, grief throws forth a whole new vocabulary too. ‘Time’ is a popular grief-speak word. ‘Process’ is another. And everyone’s favourite (altogether now!): ‘Moving On!’

The most puzzling though, for me at least, is the word ‘Acceptance’.

The other expressions I can sort of get with, but ‘Acceptance’ sticks in my craw. In this context, what the fuck does it mean?

Dictionary.com gives four possible definitions of the word:

1. the act of taking or receiving something offered.

2. favourable reception; approval; favour.

3. the act of assenting or believing: acceptance of a theory

4. the fact or state of being accepted or acceptable
Of all of these, number three seems the most likely to apply in the case of grief. But even then, it’s tenuous. How can one assent to, or allow oneself to believe, that one’s loved one has left the planet definitively, never to return? The person to whom one spoke, every single day, about everything and nothing? The one to whom one was attached literally, emotionally, perennially, and who was loved above all others?

This throws up another of the impossibilities of grief. Seemingly everyone wants you to strive for The Big ‘A’. This is the goal, the holy grail, the point at which everything will be OK. But, if Dictionary.com has it right, how do you ever reach that point?

To me, it’s another example of Bullshit Bingo. I’ve a feeling I’ll be waiting a long time for Full House.

A Patrick Stewart-style quadruple take-type situation

Posted in Bereavement Advice and Support by

On a recent trip to New York, I pursued a silver-haired, bandy-legged guy four blocks up Park Avenue convinced it was Steve Martin. I overtook him, then stopped, trying to affect a look of bewilderment.

See that white-haired bloke at the lights - that's not Steve Martin.

See that white-haired bloke approaching the lights? – that’s not Steve Martin.

“Am I anywhere near Bloomingdale’s?” I asked him.

He looked at me with Martin’s trademark currant-eyed, quizzical expression. “Er…I…not speek Eengleesh?”

Either Steve Martin was acting or this wasn’t Steve Martin. (Both feasible I guess – Martin must get sick of the spurious Bloomingdale’s query). I limped off in my ludicrous heels feeling slightly foolish.

Clearly I need glasses, as I have been convinced that I’ve seen Mark on numerous recently occasions too. Like, serious, Patrick Stewart-style quadruple take-type situations. (check that out here if you haven’t seen it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFMrBldVk0s).

He’s been in cars, on buses, on a crossing, coming round a corner; a round-faced, smiling apparition with that familiar gait which momentarily jolts my heart. I find this is happening with increasing frequency too. As if I am purposefully looking for Him in crowds, willing Him to appear.

Perhaps this is all part of the denial, the sniff of suspicion I have that He’s not really dead. That He’s fooling around and is apt to make a heroic return at any given moment. After all, that body I saw in the funeral home, with its not-quite-Mark nose – well, it could have been a waxwork. It sure as hell felt like one.

Logic tells me these are ghosts; doppelgangers, like Steve Martin’s German counterpart on Park Avenue.

But I am poised with a Bloomingdale’s-style query at the ready for the next time I see Him, just in case.

‘In the Event of my Death…’

Posted in Bereavement Advice and Support, Every day survival, Uncategorized by
English: Sir Winston Churchill.

English: Sir Winston Churchill. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you are lucky enough to still have your spouse intact, I have a question.

Do you ever discuss, you know, the D word? Is ‘death’ part of your warm, couply vocabulary, or is it one of those subjects like exes and the fact that it took him SO FUCKING LONG to propose that is never broached?

Even after He was critically ill, and the click-whoosh of His mechanical heart valve kept me awake at night, my husband and I never discussed what would happen in the event of the other’s death. It was taboo, I guess because it had almost been reality and neither of us wanted to think about the what ifs.

Besides, that Registrar in the hospital, the little fella with whom I high-fived like a fucking cheerleader when I saw him months later in the heart clinic, stated quite clearly that Mark ‘would have a normal life span’ post-surgery. So why would we spend time as a couple talking about, you know, the D word, when we had three Mad Men box sets to get through?

After the unthinkable happened, I spent a considerable amount of time and money amassing books on the subject of grief and how to deal with it. I wanted an answer to this devastating conundrum I was suddenly faced with and I convinced myself that titles such as ‘I Wasn’t Ready To Say Goodbye’ and ‘After You’d Gone’ were key texts in achieving this.

Whilst they work for some people, I quickly realised that they weren’t going to do much for me. In fact, no book can tell you how to grieve, or how to get over the death of your spouse. There is no antidote.

One book which remains well-thumbed though is entitled ‘In Loving Memory’ (sent to me by a friend in the aftermath). This morning as I was hunting for some sage words to help me get through the day, I opened it at a quote by Winston Churchill. It is an excerpt from a letter to his wife and is entitled ‘In The Event of my Death’.

“Do not grieve for me too much,” he writes. “…If there is anywhere else I shall be on the look out for you. Meanwhile look forward, feel free, rejoice in Life, cherish the children, guard my memory. God bless you.”

Oh to have been Churchill’s widow upon reading those words! He had given her a steer, given her permission to move on. Stated his wishes for her life from beyond the grave.

Stuck out here as I am in this vast ocean of grief, I can’t help wishing Mark and I had had that discussion, that he’d lent me that guiding hand.

For I’m lost. What would you want me to do, love?

The poisoned fish finger

Posted in Bereavement Advice and Support, Family, Friends by
Fried fish finger

Fried fish finger (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A friend entrusted me with her two daughters yesterday, thereby making me custodian of three little girls under the age of six. For an hour. Until their daddy came to pick them up.

Looking after other people’s children always makes me skittish as I am convinced that I am cursed and that they will fall foul of a falling Acme piano or a poisoned fish finger whilst in my care. These two, however, miraculously survived, and their daddy duly came to pick them up.

Hearing kids and their daddies interact always sends my heart into fluster, and I have to concentrate on not a) bursting into tears or b) shouting ‘Oh for fuck’s sake!’ in a really childish manner. Last night was no different.

“Have you got a cuddle for daddy?” he asked them.

“Yeah!” Within seconds they were trampolining on him, using him as a set of monkey-bars, swinging from his ears etc.

The moment reminded me of when Mark used to come in from work: the tail lights of the car edging into the garage, the shriek of ‘Daddy’s here!’ (me), the sound of the heavy car door slamming and then the sight of his face at the kitchen window, invariably contorted into some ludicrous expression.

When my friend’s husband arrived, I wanted to cuddle him too. I wanted to nuzzle my nose into his starched work-shirt collar and loosen his tie, and ask him how his day had been. I wanted to watch him flick through the post, then go to the fridge and help himself to a beer. Then I wanted my daughter to hug him and feel the sense of warmth and security that a returning parent brings.

Instead I kissed him sagely on the cheek and watched his reunion with his girls.

Turns out my daughter felt it too. As they were leaving, I heard great wails coming from outside. I ran out, gathered her up and asked;

“Whatever is it? Acme piano? Poisoned fish finger?”

She buried her head in my shoulder and cried: “I just want my Daddy.”