Nearing the end of 2021

Well there are only a couple of days left in 2021. Another year which is been tough for many of us. The pandemic rumbles on, especially here in the UK, where the government's policy of herd immunity has seen the deaths of many.  

Personally I have been fortunate in that covid hasn't, yet, touched me or my family. As with last year I have spent time reflecting on how tough it would have been had Tall still been alive. I suspect we wouldn't have been so lucky, as no doubt at some point Tall would have had to attend the hospital for treatment.  

I still miss Tall, and I have come to realise that the only reason I can cope with my grief, is that I simply don't think about him very often. When I do the tears start to flow. I feel guilty that I don't think of him as often as I should, but I have to protect myself. I'm not sure whether it is healthy for me psychologically. I just hope I'm not storing up trouble for the future. 

I had hoped that this year I would make progress with making new friends. I joined a few groups via an app, but haven't been to many of the events as initially I was too scared to travel home alone late at night and more recently they have been cancelled because of the rising cases of covid. I will persevere and hopefully as the evenings become longer and the weather warmer things will improve. 

One thing is for certain, I'm not looking to meet anyone new. I have no need for romantic love, I need the easy friendship that seems so hard to find. I have struggled this year with keeping up with the friendships I do have. I haven't emailed people anywhere near as often as I should. Hamstringing myself with thoughts that I have nothing interesting to say so best not say anything. It is why I haven't written a blog entry for over six months. 

Looking back over the last two and a half years I can clearly see that I have made progress with my grief. Am I where I want to be? Not yet. Do I actually know where I want to be? Probably not. To be honest it is difficult to separate my own thoughts and those which Tall had. His welling meaning "lectures" on what I should do when he was gone have left their mark. Some are easily banished, like meet someone new, others gnaw away at me as I struggle to see how I can be the person he thought I could. 

As I have said before I don't do resolutions anymore. The last two years have shown how unpredictable life can be and plans are so easily destroyed by unforeseen circumstances. The only plan I have is to keep moving forward. 

I wish you all a happy and healthy 2022. 

It could have been....

 Monday would have been our 10th wedding anniversary. Some people say it still was, but it isn't really the same celebrating alone. I looked at the photos and remembered how ridiculously happy we were. Happy to be joined by those we loved and who loved us in return. It might only have been a small wedding party that walked to the resturant after the ceremony, but every single person was there because they wanted to be, not out of any sense of duty. 

I feel robbed and more than a little bit angry that out time together was so short compared to others. I console myself with the knowledge that we were lucky to have found true love, even if it was all too brief. 

My first, my last, my everything.

How are you?

I'm okay I guess.

You don't sound too sure.

Well I still burst into tears in the middle of the street. 

Today I did just that. As I was walking the dog a neighbour drove past in his Lotus 7, he's older than Tall and has quite a collection of cars, all of which Tall adored. I reflected internally on how unfair it all was, but resigned myself to the fact I couldn't change things.

As we neared home a different neighbour was polishing his 1967 Mini, I just burst into tears. One of Tall's first jobs was working as a mechanic on Mini's, it was also his very last job.  A month before he died he helped out "the lads" at the garage he always used. They had had an old Mini sitting there for over twelve months, unable to work out why it wouldn't start. The mechanics, who are both in their thirties had no experience of working on older cars. Tall knew exactly what the problem was. He got them to take off the carburettor and he brought it home. He ordered the parts he knew he needed online and then sat, with his oxygen on, fixing it. He took back the carburettor and got them to refit it, he was then given the honour of starting the car up. It started first time. I cannot express how proud he was, knowing that he could still make a difference even when stuck in a wheelchair on oxygen. Me, I'm just so incredibly sad that he isn't here to still make a difference. 

Rainy days.

 It seems to have been raining for weeks and the only thing that appears to be flourishing in the garden is the grass. It is of course too wet to cut and it wouldn't be advisable given the lawn mower is electric. Tall once thought he would get away with it, and we had to buy a new mower. 

I thought having gotten through the anniversary of Tall's death that everything would be okay. It isn't. The dark rain clouds are not just literal, but also mental. No amount of volunteering, keeping busy or filling the day can stop the waking up in the night sobbing because there's a Tall sized hole that simply cannot be filled. A loneliness that is there even in a group of people. Even after two years I find myself wanting to tell him about something I have seen or done. To ask him his opinion on a choice I have to make. I long to have a conversation about nothing and everything, to talk about the stars under the night sky. 

I should be finding myself, instead I am simply finding that I am nothing without him. All around me people are getting back to normal. Back to their lives of holidays and coupledom. I am aware that there are those who might be in a relationship that is unhappy, I know that I am better off than them. Still, seeing people together, holding hands or simply sitting side by side, makes me sad.

No matter where.

 Yesterday West Brom. lost to Arsenal. It isn't the first time and hopefully we will have a chance to beat them or get beaten again. For next year at least that opportunity will only happen if we are drawn against each other in one of the cups. West Bromwich Albion have been relegated to the Championship. I can't be sure what Tall would say, but I can imagine. I learnt over the years how passionate he was about his team. His euphoria when promoted and disappointment when relegated. Through it all though he was a supporter. He would always tell me of the time when they were in the third division and hardly any fans turned up. He would proudly say that even if they were relegated to the fourth division he would still support them. 

That really sums Tall up completely. He was loyal to his team and his friends no matter where they were or what they did. Boing boing Baggies.

The garden

 I have been trying to spend as much time as possible outside when the weather allows. May has so far been the complete opposite of April, he have had days of rain and days of heavy showers with sunny intervals. The temperature has dropped considerably and so for now many of the plants need to stay in the greenhouse. I'm not keen on being out in halestorms either.

The year that Tall died I couldn't bear being in the garden, no matter what the weather. Every tree and plant reminded me of him, of how he would never taste the fruit from the trees or simply sit until the stars were out, enjoying the summer evenings.  In the midst of my grief I couldn't sit outside and i couldn't sit inside, I forever seemed to be wandering between the two, tears streaming down my face. Last year was better, although I didn't know what to do with it other, than cut the grass. I put up the pool and spent a few of the warmer days cooling off in it. Tall loved sitting in the cool water, although it wasn't something he was really able to do after 2017. Unfortunately, in my solo attempt to put it away at the end of the summer, I ended up tearing it, so I don't have one for this year. I think the decking might be better left clear in case I can have people around. This year I am planting hanging baskets for the first time since 2018. I still have to buy more plants and snap-dragons will be one of those that I will buy. Tall loved them. 

I will probably always get a little sad in the garden, Tall created so much of what it is now. Some of it I wish I could change. Maybe next year I will have the greenhouse moved to the wasted space on the drive and use the concrete pad where it sits now as a dining area. I remember back in 2019, a few months after Tall died, that the neighbour across the road, who lost her husband over twenty years  ago, was telling me that she still got sad in the garden. There's something about the continuing of life in the plants that acts as a reminder of the life that is no longer lived. Tall will always be in the trees.

I can't help it.

 I woke up this morning and the first thing I did was remember what we were going to do this evening two years ago. Tall was an avid fan of one particular football team and on 3rd May 2019 the were holding a Question of Sport type event with two teams of former players in aid of the club's charity foundation. Tall knew it would be his last chance to visit his beloved ground and his last to see players he admired and adored. 

The evening turned out better than he could ever have hoped. Whilst he was sitting there alone, I had gone to the bar to get myself a drink, the compere of the evening came across to talk to him. Tall it seems told him exactly what his situation was. He then arranged for some of the players to pop across during the interval to say hi. Tall was overjoyed, even more so as his number one hero actually stopped and talked to him the whole interval.  

I will be forever grateful to Bomber Brown for the immense kindness he showed Tall and to those other players who spent the time talking to us, without fear despite Tall explaining he had just weeks left to live. 

I am trying to make happier memories, today just isn't one of the happy days. 

A start

 As part of my attempt this year to make Merry May Memories I have moved my office (okay the laptop) back into the conservatory. It means that I can look out of the windows and watch the birds. Admittedly they aren't particularly exotic, I really only get sparrows with the very odd visit from goldfinches, blue-tits and great-tits. Last year I seemed to have a much greater variety, which is strange as I am not doing anything different this year. 

As we move into summer the conservatory may become too warm, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. In the meantime it means I get my dining room table back, having also thrown away some stuff that had been slowly piling up since Christmas. There is still a lot to declutter, but one black bag  of rubbish is progress for one day. 

 

Not helping.

 I've woken up feeling blue, and it isn't a very good start to Merry May. You see yesterday was my last shift working for the ONS on the Census 2021 and I am going to miss actually talking to people. I am going to miss the weekly team meeting online and the seemingly simple fact that I had to text my team leader at the end of my shift to say I was finished and home safe, and that they would reply. 

The past six weeks have been tough at times, especially the first few where walking for three hours, clocking up between five and seven miles during the shift, had my knees screaming. There was one weekend when I thought I might have to resign, I didn't think I could cope with it anymore. Yet I perservered and now I am going to miss it. 

I seem to be in the middle of the perfect storm again. As people in the UK are getting excited about being able to go to the shops, have a drink outside at the pub and meet up with up to six people outside, I am reminded that I am alone. That I have no one to meet up with or to go to the pub with. My little, very part-time job has ended just as everyone else seems to be off enjoying themselves and I have the anniversary of Tall's death looming on the horizon.

I know only I can change things, I just wish I knew how. I wish I had that one person who I could trust to help me find the way through.

Melancholy May

 I know there are still four days of April left, yet already May is casting its shadow. May has become a month where bad things happen. 

In May 2006 Tall caught chickenpox from my daughter. He happily stayed at home with her as he had had it as a child (so he believed). He sadly caught it again, and it made him really ill. The chickenpox lead to shingles and he spent over a month in bed. 

In May 2010 in the midst of chemotherapy Tall was admitted to hospital with slurred speech, a drooping face and difficulty swallowing. The swallowing problem wasn't a sore throat but an actual inability to swallow food without aspirating it (it went into his lungs and lead to pneumonia). His consultant was concerned. Was the chemo the cause of his problem? Had the myeloma spread into his spinal cord and onto his brain? They did an MRI, nuclear imaging and a lumber puncture. I remember being taken into the quiet room by one of the doctors who told me of their concerns. Tall was scared and so was I. It eventually turned out that he had had a massive sinus infection, something that we only found out from a different consultant months later. 

In May 2017 Tall had to go into hospital for a second SCT. It nearly killed him and he ended up in ITU / ICU will sepsis. We were told that as he had no working system of producing blood cells and had no kidney function that if his heart stopped or he struggled to breathe that they wouldn't be resuscitating him. I can remember him saying it was alright to me as I sobbed uncontrollably . Before he had been admitted we had agreed that I would visit him twice a week as it was a long journey from home and he'd only be in a few weeks judging by the previous SCT. I ended up visiting every day, leaving the house at ten in the morning and getting back at eight in the evening. I had calls in the middle of the night from him saying they were trying to kill him, telling me to call the police as he was being held hostage. After several weeks he was moved out of ITU, unable to walk, unable to eat, a mere shadow of himself. Eventually he discharged himself as he felt he was making no progress, and so he came home unable to walk.

He didn't remember the calls and he didn't remember the DNR he had agreed to. It was only by chance, months later, that his kidney consultant mentioned it in passing. Tall hit the roof and was furious with me for having agreed to it. I clearly remember it was him that told me he had agreed to it. 

That event in 2017 left him scarred. Tall's heart and lungs were damaged by the infection that very nearly killed him. His body had lost all its muscle due to prolonged inactivity and no matter how much he ate and how hard he tried to train at the gym that body mass never returned. It was that May which ultimately lead Tall to May 2019.

You all know what happened May 2019, how a very tired Tall, whose health had deteriorated since October 2018, finally gave up. 

This year I want May to be different. I want to make Merry May Memories. I am going to ask followers on Twitter, readers of the blog and friends on Facebook for ideas on how I can turn my frown into a smile.  

 

The second is worse.

 I had read other people saying that the seconds can be harder, yet up until today that hadn't been the case for me. My second birthday, my second Christmas and Tall's birthday had all been easier. Today being my second Valentine's Day without Tall has been much harder. 

As I said last year we never really went in for all the roses and chocolate stuff. Yet reading what I wrote last year feels surreal, I can't believe how unfazed I seemed to be. I wish I was feeling that laid back this year. May be the whole pandemic and lockdown are taking their toll on my mental health. May be I am just feeling a bit more raw. I'm not longing for a card or a dozen over priced roses, and I can buy my own chocolate and wine if I feel the need.  I am longing for my Valentine to be here next to me, to have him holding my hand as we watch the world pass by. 

The last of the first.

 As the first month of 2021 reaches its end I find myself wondering where the days went. One minute it was a new year, the next it was Tall's birthday and now it is the final day. In these strange times it is difficult to look back and see any thing that has actually been achieved, life feels like walking through treacle. No matter what time I get up in the morning I still get to the evening many days without a meal prepared or even a clue what to eat.

The same is true of the time since Tall died. It doesn't feel like it was only yesterday, but it does feel like it was only last year instead of it being 2019. Twenty months without his company. There's still a lot of things I cannot do. Some of them are very practical things like getting the Christmas tree down from the attic, I had to make do with a small one that used to be in the kids' bedrooms. I am very wary of getting jobs done around the house and garden, jobs that I am no longer young enough or strong enough to tackle or that I'm even capable of doing. Tall once tried patching up some missing plaster and he couldn't do it either. 

Then there are the emotional things. The things I cannot change or get rid of. Tall's razor is still on the bathroom shelf. There are still tins of rice pudding in the pantry. The bed needs a new mattress, something Tall told me I should buy when he was gone, a fresh start. I cannot let it go. 

A few months before Tall died my youngest son and his then girlfriend came to visit. Everyone knew what the situation was, Tall wouldn't let anyone be under any illusions. We went out for a walk with my youngest daughter and granddaughter, and the dogs to a small local park. Whilst my granddaughter played we talked about death and what to expect. My son's girlfriend told me about her grandfather's death at home. How the family had all been there. She told me that even though he had died around lunchtime her grandmother had wanted to keep him there and spend one last night with him. The family told her she couldn't. When I was told the story my initial reaction was that I couldn't possibly sleep next to someone who had died. It was only when I found myself in that situation that I realised that is exactly what I wanted to do too. I didn't want the body taken away. I wanted to keep Tall next to me forever. If I could have had him stuffed I would. The best I can do is keep the mattress that he died on. I can lie in his dip before moving over to my side of the bed and that gives me comfort.

It may not be for everyone. I know from widow's groups that there are some people who cannot use the bedroom after their loved one has died, who cannot use a loved one's chair or bear to see their things. We all deal with death in our own way. How we cope is as individual as our fingerprints.

For those whose loved ones have been cremated there seems to be many ways of dealing with death. There are those who have the ashes buried in a special place they can visit. Some people have ornate urns so that they can be kept in pride of place at home, waiting until they too die and the ashes can then be put together and left for next of kin to deal with. Some ashes are scattered, and some are turned into fireworks. I have heard of people getting their loved one's ashes tattooed into their skin. Whilst some of these things might not be for me I realise that everyone has to be free to deal with their grief in a way that suits them. I have learnt to be less judgemental. If their choices are hurting no one, not even themselves, then they should be free to get themselves tattooed or sleep in a dead man's bed.

Celebration

Today is Tall's birthday. I will be celebrating it like last year with a good bottle of red wine and steak, which is exactly what Tall would have wanted for his birthday. I am celebrating that I was lucky enough to have known him, even if our time together was far too short. We had imagined that we might get thirty years together.  

I recently read an interview with a grief expert, who through his own grief experience, had discovered that there was a sixth stage to grief, finding meaning. He wasn't taking about finding meaning in the death itself, but finding meaning in the life of the person we have lost or meaning in what their loss has done to us as individuals, how it may have changed us and allowed us to grow. The article can be found here.

Looking back I can see that over the last twelve months I have been doing a lot of trying to find meaning. I still have days of anger, of bargaining and periods of depression, through it all though I try and find the good things. The lessons I learnt from knowing him and from having to cope with his loss have made me a different person to the one I was before I knew him. 

I know that he didn't change the whole world, but that his life touched many others, and only really changed a handful. There are those who say he saved their lives, people who he helped emotionally and of course he changed my life forever. 

Today I will celebrate that Tall was in this world, tears and all. 

Italy 2008

Confession

 Hello. My name is Pixie and I have a confession. I am glad Tall isn't here for the pandemic. 

Yesterday the UK added another one thousand, eight hundred and twenty people to the toll of those who have died from covid-19. 1,820. Which brings the government's running total to 95,829, a figure which is probably below the reality as they only count those who died within 28 days of a positive test. In reality the number is probably over 100,000!

The truth is if Tall had still been alive the last ten months would have been awful. He would at some point had to visit the hospital, be it for a blood transfusion, dialysis or a lung drain. Probably all three several times. Even if he hadn't caught covid-19 there, there's a chance I might have caught it at the shops, for all I know I have had it asymptomatically. Tall hated being told what to do, hated being shut in the house and if he had been stuck in for the last ten months chances are he'd have broken his shielding and caught it outside somewhere. We would have argued and fallen out as I would have tried to wrap him in cotton wool and he would have done the exact opposite just to be awkward.  

I miss having him here to talk to, having him around to lift my mood when I'm feeling down, yet I know that life would have been even tougher with him here and I feel a bit guilty for being glad he isn't. 

Still here.

 I've been meaning to blog since the 1st, so I'm only sixteen days late. Firstly, I am obviously still alive. I have managed so far to avoid catching covid-19, hopefully that luck will continue. Like many other people in the UK there's a feeling of Groundhog Day about our lives. Currently in yet another lockdown that prevents us meeting up with people socially, including family from outside the home, yet allows millions to still go to work. I'm not talking about the truly essential workers, but all those people who have other reasons to carry on working, the ones the government should be helping to stay at home in order to help society. During the first lockdown only ten percent of children were in school, this time it is over fifty percent. 

The pandemic has left me pretty much where I was in January last year, only this time I don't have a trip to Australia to look forward to. With time I have become used to the loneliness, I have no other choice. I get angry some days that I haven't been able to move forward with life, luckily I have the virus to blame rather than myself. I do worry that I am going to spend the rest of my life alone, and that no one will even notice that I am longer around. 

I have been dreaming about Tall a lot since Christmas, almost every night. The dreams are of Tall before 2017. We are on holiday, going out for a meal or meeting up with friends. We are having a wonderful time until Tall says he needs dialysis. We drive home, me apologetic that I haven't set the machine up, that he'll have to wait the twelve hours until it is ready. We get home and I rush upstairs, the machine isn't there. I turn to Tall and say "You died, we'll have to call the unit at the hospital and ask if they can help you." Tall smiles at me. At this point I awake and cry quietly to myself. I miss his company so much. I miss the man he was before he became so ill in 2017. 

Covid-19 has brought to the public eye what intensive care is like. Tall wasn't ventilated, but he was heavily sedated. He had tubes everywhere. The stories of what it is like have brought back all the memories, a reminder of just how much intensive care stole from Tall. I know that it gave him more time, time that Tall wouldn't have wanted to miss. That last visit from his best mate in Australia, the chance to put his affairs in order, the time to make sure he had done his best to ensure I would be okay.  He tried desperately to rehabilitate himself. He joined a gym and bought equipment for home.  He tried high protein diets and high fat shakes, anything to put weight on and rebuild muscle, but nothing worked. I think the staff at the hospital could see it, in hindsight I knew too, Tall was never going to recover from his treatment in 2017. Tall was stubborn though, he tried everything he could think of to regain strength and fitness, and I loved him.