All hail the conquering hero,
Away on another quest -
the battle lines are drawn.

You look forward,
Chin up, shoulders squared,
Ready for the last frontier.

The trees weep
and throw down blossom
like confetti at your passing.

The forget-me-nots nod
in somber tribute
as you make your choice.

I watch you walk away
with a piece of my heart
I never knew I’d miss.

Dear old Dad

I followed a link from Twitter the other day to an evocative blog by a young woman who had recently lost her Mother to Alzheimers.You can tell from the way she writes that it has been an immensely painful process for her, and the admiration I feel for her, being able to blog about something so IMMENSELY horrible that it feels as though your soul has been nigh-on ripped in two, is almost unquantifiable.

As I suppose is natural, I began thinking back to my own actions when my Father was dying and after he died. It’s not something that I’ve tended to dwell on. In some respects, knowing the end was coming allowed me to do a bit of grieving before the moment came, and the rest has passed in a whirlwind of chaos, time and stoicism. Looking back to then hurts. I want my memories of my Father to be good – to be memories of the vivid, strong, effervescent man he was, not the husk of a man in the hospice bed, waiting for his daughter to say goodbye before he took his last breath. It’s hard to remember the man who turned to you the week before he died and said, ‘I’m tired of fighting now, darling. It’s time for me to give up’ and looking at me almost as if he’s asking my permission, and begging for me to understand. It’s hard remembering that, and harder still to remember myself running from pillar to post, trying to create some last happy moments and failing. It’s easier to say it gets better with time, than to know how important it is to look back at a devastating moment and forgive myself for being less than perfect, to forgive myself for being human and to forgive myself for being me.

Because the truth is, that no matter what happens, how it happens or who it’s with: it’s not pretty. It’s painful, it’s ugly and time seems to pass both too fast and too slow all at the same time. I made mistakes that seemed to take on epic proportions and everything seemed to have added weight or significance because time was short. I remember all too much how imperfect I’ve been as a daughter, all the times I said ‘I hate you’ in anger instead of ‘I love you’. It doesn’t matter how many times I said I love you since those teenage days, they hang back and haunt  me and added to some kind of pressure in my head that wanted to make the last weeks and months perfect. I feel guilty because I wanted the whole thing to be over, because it’s so long and drawn out and the suffering is immense. I feel selfish because I wonder how much of that wanting it to be over is wanting him to be free of the pain, and how much is me wanting the horror of the hours, days and weeks to be over. I feel guilty because I desperately didn’t want him to die, because I was afraid that the pain of losing him would be too much to bear. I felt guilty because despite having so long to say goodbye, I never told him all the reasons I  loved him, and never even realised them all until he was gone.

And then it happened. And I felt numb. It just didn’t process that one minute he could be in there (just, but just was enough) and the next minute, not. And people wanted to go and be with him after he’d gone and it freaked me out and I couldn’t bear it.

And they expected me to get up and do things and be practical and worry about fucking death certificates while there was a yearning hole inside me that threatened to engulf my entire being. I still don’t know if I can forgive myself for smiling and being practical and doing what needed to be done, when I wanted to be standing on the side of a wild hillside, screaming at the top of my lungs just how bloody unfair this was, and HOW WAS I GOING TO COPE WITHOUT HIM?I still don’t know if I can forgive myself for soothing others when they rang up the house and burst into tears whilst offering their condolences instead of shouting ‘how the hell do you think I feel?’

I wanted to punch every last living soul who quoted me platitutes and told me it would get better, and brain the woman who told me at his funeral that she couldn’t bear to look at me because it reminded me too much of him. I was angry at everyone who didn’t know how to respond and ignored me instead, I was furious with the people who thought that because I was okay on the surface, I wasn’t bleeding underneath. Perhaps I need to forgive them for not knowing how to be, when they haven’t experienced devastation and loss like that, and perhaps I don’t really want to because it reminds me of just how raw it still is three years on, and how vulnerable and lonely everything still is without him.

Time doesn’t really make it okay, no matter what anyone says. All time does is teach me how to function without him. It doesn’t make the sharp stab of loss any less when I hear the busker singing A Modern Major General in Oxford Street, or I hear the London Irish fans raising a chrous of Fields of Athen Rye in support of the team. It doesn’t stop the lump in my throat when I hear someone say ‘stupid boy’ in the tones of Captain Mainwaring from Dad’s Army or a cheerful ‘my dear boy’. It doesn’t make it any less devastating to see the Father of a friend lead her up the aisle on her wedding day. Everything is slightly bittersweet, because it’s always slightly coloured with the memory of a man who is no longer here.

I can forgive myself for feeling that, because to forget too quickly would be worse, and if time someday eases how it feels to be without him, then perhaps I can learn to forgive myself for that too.

Unless you’ve had your head buried in the sand recently, you couldn’t have missed the fact that it’s Mothering Sunday this coming Sunday.

The history of Mothering Sunday is believed to have religious roots.  Most Sundays in the year churchgoers would worship at their nearest parish or “daughter church”. In Victorian times it was considered important for people to return to their home or “mother” church at least once a year, which was commonly thought to be the nearest Cathedral. So each year on the fourth Sunday of Lent, everyone would visit their “mother” church. The return to the “mother” church became an occasion for family reunions when children who were in service away from home returned. The majority of historians think that it was this return to the “Mother” church which led to the tradition of children, particularly those working as domestic servants, or as apprentices, being given the day off to visit their mother and family.

Of course, nowadays, much like Valentine’s day, it’s largely a commercial holiday with retailers telling us to buy everything from hand sanitising lotion (thanks for the heads up on that one Amber) to fossils and every last thing in between as a token of our appreciation for our parents. Turn into the local stationers and you’re bombarded with saccharine sweet cards declaring our love for our Mothers. And most people I know will be buying one with a gift for their mothers and doing something special this Sunday.

I won’t be.

You see, while most of the people I know are pretend moaning about buying cards and presents for their Mums but secretly thinking it’s kind of sweet, I can’t do that. And every time I hear someone talking about what they’ll be doing with their Mums, my heart lurches a little bit, because I know it’s unlikely that I will be able to do that, and that Mothers day, for me, is likely to be the same non-event that it has been for a decade or so.

You see, my Mum suffers from a mental disability. An addiction that led her to make a choice between me and another big love in her life and in my youthful, hot-headed way a number of years ago I decided that I couldn’t spend my life playing second fiddle to her addictions. It’s not a choice I regret but it makes me feel a little sad and a little wistful knowing that while other sons and daughters are celebrating what their parents have done and have sacrificed to give them a decent start in life, my Mum wouldn’t do that. That I wasn’t reason enough to battle for and  to know I will never be able to celebrate her in that way. While it was my choice to walk away from it and chose to live my own life, it’s a twist of the knife to know that I had to make that choice, to know that I couldn’t have my own life and a loving mother, and to know that I will never be able to join in the celebrations.

I won’t rant about how wrong it is to celebrate Mother’s day just because a minority of us can’t do so. It’s a day to celebrate your Mother (and historically your family) and that’s a joyful thing. So I say go wild. Remember every damned thing your Mother has ever done to make you happy and then mutiply it by 10, because that’s probably closer to the truth. Forget the arguments, the niggles and the tiny things that annoy you about your Mum … because they don’t matter. Imagine what it would be like to spend every single day for the rest of your life without her … and the emotional devatation you can imagine is the the mirror to how much you really love her. Hold onto those thoughts and when you see your Mum on Sunday, don’t just give her a bunch of flowers and a hug … TELL HER how much you lover her, how much you appreciate her and how much she’s one of the best things in your life. Don’t let her go without knowing all the things you love about her from the way she smells to the way she dances when she thinks no-one’s watching .

But being in the situation I am, makes me consider other people, who through no choice of their own don’t have a Mother with whom they can celebrate either. People who’ve lost their family through any kind of tragedy. Being subjected to the endless barage of advertising is going to hurt  as much as the knowledge that the day is one that we are now and will forever be excluded from that special relationship and celebration. So as you consider your maternal relationships on Sunday and spend a little time with the ones you love, just spare a little thought for those of us who won’t be.

I was nervous. Being in front of the camera is not my favourite location. I feel naked and vulnerable, and having consoled myself with chocolate brownies after my Dad passed away, was more than aware that I’m not currently looking my best. I was expecting to look acceptable but I’d figured beautiful was an option that had leapt out of the window to save itself a long time back.

The first few photos that came on screen were family shots of us and the hounds, and were lovely momentoes of the day. They were bright and bubbly and fun. Pictures of a family that were happy and loved each other. It couldn’t fail to make you smile.

… and then the photos seagued into the individual shots. I was dreading it. My hands had already crept up to my face, ready to cover my eyes and my heart was beating ten to the dozen. And then THEY appeared and my breath stopped for a moment. I blinked. I shook my head and I heard myself say ‘Oh My God, I never knew I could look like that’ and there it was. There were three. One was cute, and cuddly and wintry and warm and one was all wild eyes and sexy (Me! Imagine that!) and then there was THE ONE. It didn’t have the definable fun factor or sexy elements that the other two did but it had a something that caught me perfectly. It was slightly sultry, mysterious with a hint of my mind’s on other things. It looked on the outside the way I felt on the inside. It’s a work of art.

THEN we got to sis’s shots. Christ she’s photogenic, although she’d never believe me. She had a couple of stunning shots but she too had a ONE and it’s fabulous. Despite her preoccupation with being perfectly coiffed all the time (Joan Collins, eat your heart out) her amazing picture had a really grungy, moody element to it. Almost slightly dark and dangerous. Like you could imagine a classy Courtney Love in a ballgown, leaning against a brick wall in an alley on her way to the Oscars, ready for a dangerous rendezvous. It’s the sort of image that seems to talk to you; it challenges you to try and take her on, provokes you to try with the knowledge she could squash you like a bug. It suits her. It suits the conversation we had over dinner after the shoot.

As well as a beautiful reminder of a fabulous day, the pictures are more than that. Amongst them, there is not only a tale of our relationship but a reminder to us, of who and what we are. Lest we ever forget.

When everyone left last weekend, after heaving a sigh of relief that everything was all in one piece and I could flop on the sofa and recover from the weekend, I felt a bit of a wrench at seeing all these people I loved leaving, and found that it was a bit more of a wrench than I was expecting, which I can only attribute to my sister.

Many of my friends often view families and siblings in particular as a test of their patience, and as something visited upon you by fate that by and large you just have to tolerate for most of your life. I suppose that in that respect I am exceedingly lucky. My sister and I grew up very close, and seemed to have grown more so over the years. We seem to have weathered many of the worst bumps that life can throw at you and know each other inside out.

If ever I receive news of any description, the first person I ring will be my sister, knowing that she will instinctively understand my reaction and will talk me down from whatever state of madness I have found myself in, encourage me or give me the boot in the backside I (quite often) richly deserve.

She’s the one person from whom I will unconditionally accept criticism, because she knows me so well that there’s little point to pretending that I had or would react in any other way than the one she expects. She knows how to draw me out of dark moods and when to be silly and remind me of the small things that can make me laugh until the tears run down my face and my ribs ache from laughing so hard. She cringes madly when I sing along to tunes in the car and yet I know if I sneak a sideways peek, she’ll be mouthing the words too.

She reminds me of all th incalculably stupid things I have done during my life and when I feel down about them also reminds me that in the short time I’ve been alive that I achieved some absolutely AMAZING things too. She reminds me that it’s okay to be the person I am and the person I want to be, and that it’s okay not to want to be ordinary but to strive for the impossible. She helps me to believe that I can make the impossible happen every single day.

She drags me out of my comfortable shoes and into shoes I wear once a year so that we can look pretty when we go out. She doesn’t insist on hanging off my arm to prove that she loves me. She understands the value in knowing when to shut the hell up and give someone space and when to stick her oar in.

She’s generous, intelligent, educated, articulate and hilariously funny. She doesn’t take herself too seriously and she doesn’t take me too seriously either. She’s ridiculously beautiful and never realises how much.She’s my best friend who I could rely on to be there for me if I was dangling off the side of a cliff in Outer Mongolia. I cannot imagine that I have ever done anything in my life to deserve having a sister tso wonderful that thinking about her makes me teary because I miss her so much. You’re my rock. This is just to say – Lu, I love you.  Merry Christmas. xx