Every year I dread today, not just because of what happened then for everything that’s happened since – all the life that you’ve missed.
13th August 1997
I was walking alone in the darkness of a campsite and watched a shooting star (or more accurately the comet trail of Halle-Bopp the Great Comet of 1997) and I just knew that you were with it, a bold fleeting brightness that burned too strong to last long.
I dreaded knowing that you were sick and this time you weren’t getting better,
I dreaded knowing the exact moment you’d died,
I dreaded what my life would be like without you in it and…
I dreaded all the future hurts and sadness that I could see as ripples on the lake of your passing.
There was so much sorrow and shame (I could never explain why I knew when it happened, no logic was ever enough for me or religious relatives) the sadness was numbing in its sharpness.
But the shame? I thought I would drown in it.
What I dread most now is the distance from it all, from you.
It feels odd to have carried around the pain of your dying for so much longer than the time we had with joy of you living.
I think some part of me is afraid that if I ever forget how much it hurt to lose you that’d be the same as losing you altogether, at least with the hurt always here it’s like a part of you is still with me.
Today Dad I just want to send you love and tell you we’re alright, we miss you, we love you and we always will.
RIP Dad, love Nicky x