Things I want to document, at 4.30am on Saturday 28 July.
1. My Dad died six months ago today and it was not the first thing I thought of this morning. I got up at 4.30am to let the dog out for a wee and because I was chuntering about the dog, it meant that my Dad’s death wasn’t the first thing I thought of. This is exactly what my Dad would want but I’m full of self flagellating thoughts about it anyway.
2. This now means that I’ll be awake at the point where he actually died and I don’t know how I feel about that. I used to wake up just before 6.18am, which is when we got The Call to say his breathing had changed and we should go in. We never thought that he would already have gone by the time we arrived there 15 minutes later.
3. Time is not a healer but it does give me space for perspective.
4. I’m worried about my decision making process. We’re making some big decisions for our boys at the moment and I’m not entirely confident that we’ve done the right thing. But I know that we’ve gone at them with the best intentions for them, knowing that there’s no perfect outcome.
5. I’m proud of my Mum. This week she has helped other people, she’s recycled a couple of things that she’d been holding onto in her new home which didn’t fit or work – but were from Thames Avenue, so she felt she needed to hang on to them – and she’s made progress in settling into her new home. None have been easy, but she’s done them and I hope she’ll look back on this week as a turning point. It feels like it’s got the potential for that.
6. It’s really hard to support someone who is grieving. I am acutely aware that I’ve been on edge all week – do I count last Sunday as six months or wait for today, the actual date? Neither matters, my Daddy died and I’m still here and it’s up to me to make life work. More than that, it’s up to me to live the best life I can, and take our boys on a life that’s a full as it can be. Full of adventure, emotion and doing the right thing, whatever that may be.
I want to live my best life and for our boys to have their best life as well. I am tired of saying that I don’t know what it looks like, that I only know what I do not want it to include. I want to decide what should be in it. Feck it. That’s today’s job. Totally do able. Right?
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