Really really really busy.
That's how I orchestrated last week. Wednesday was the first anniversary of dad's death. In the same week Ruby finished preschool which again, felt like it would be overwhelmingly significant. But I managed to sort of completely not allow myself to properly engage with either event. I threw in a huge amount of denial and came out with a fairly happy week. I had something on every night except Thursday and Gwyn's parents visited and then we went up North to try and give that 'celebrating a life' thing a shot with dad's side of the family. Really though, despite enjoying it I did know without a shadow of a doubt that it wasn't just me that would be enjoying it a hell of a lot more if the person you were missing was there. And it's very difficult to not focus on the reality that they will never be there again.
Anyway, Wednesday, the significant date, I woke up and immediately remember being woken up by Gwyn a year to the day and being told that he was gone. I remembered all the details, But I put it to one side. Later at around the same time as I would have done a year to the day I couldn't help but remember walking into the room he was in, what he looked like, that stillness, that there was nothing animate in this strange shell. I reached out and touched his arm and recoiled in shock that it felt so different. He didn't look anything like the man who watched me graduate or held both my children on the day they were born. I touched his arm and there was nothing. Whatever was, suddenly wasn't. That is the trouble with the first year anniversary. You remember exactly where you were when you heard or if you were with them you remember what they looked like when they were 'gone'. And if they were not looking anything like the vast majority of your memories it almost makes it possible that it wasn't really them that died. But you can't get rid of that memory that they did and that you know. But again, I parked it.
About two months ago I saw a piece in my magazine about an event they were holding on how to write a novel. So I got on a train, met a friend in Covent Garden, had an early supper and hit a smart club for a glass of champagne to wait for a question and answer session. I had no idea what to expect, I forced myself out the comfort zone and immediately got chatting to some other lovely ladies that had arrived solo as well. We had a great night listening to how some of the best contemporary female crime writers get inspired and their techniques. It was all very inspiring. At the end of the evening I wanted to blurt out how grateful I was to these strangers in my life that had sort of saved me from myself. But I didn't of course, though it just serves to illustrate how important it is to understand we never know what anyone else is going through. And it demonstrates how much just a little friendliness can lift someone who is having an otherwise emotionally laden day.
I'm still getting to grips with Ruby leaving preschool. I think I may have had my breakdown about that already when George wouldn't sit in the end of year photo the other week and I cried, nay, sobbed the whole way home. I can't believe this big wedge of what is her conventional time with her parents is done. Too much to think about.
But the meeting with the family at the weekend helped me somewhat with processing the anniversary. We watched old footage of a family holiday in Butlins and although it proved quite difficult to watch, it did make me realise that I don't have to instantly remember dad as he died but rather, as he lived. As the one person who had been there to pick me up when things were down, who I could call on in any crisis, who loved me infinitely and without boundaries and who trusted me and who I loved SO MUCH. So it's been no bad thing busying myself,
I think it might have got me in a much better place.
