How is it that this time last year you were alive, breathing, well?
This post comes with a warning. There’s no resolve to this one. This is the reality of grief.
I’ve been thinking a lot about it being November. A month associated with birthdays, diagnoses and relapses.
These particular November days have been tiring. We have had sickness in the house. We have been getting ready to gather for family birthdays. We have talked more about Timothy with some of the professional people who support us, reliving this time last year.
We’ve been reminded that we’re grieving people (of course, we can’t really forgot but we can push the sadness down) and of the enormity of what we have been through. This is good for us but it’s hard. It takes something out of us that is hard to explain.
On Saturday we gathered with family to celebrate two birthdays. It is right to celebrate my other boys yet when it was over I felt the sadness creeping in. I had talked earlier in the day with Ross about thinking that one of our last photographed meals together was in November - a birthday celebration for one of the boys. Tacos!
Later in the day my head turned to photos wondering what else we had captured last November. The last month that Timothy was well (or as well as Timothy can be). As I looked back at photos I saw a selfie on the 27th November - Timothy, me and Goose. Smiling, happy, cheeky (and Goose a little bit guilty! He knows he isn’t meant to be on a chair at the kitchen table!) just 33 days before he died.
And a video of him de-icing his car. We were heading out for coffee on foot and didn’t need the car. He was just de-icing it because he had never seen his car covered in ice and thought it was cool!
If you had told me that he would be gone so shortly after this I wouldn’t have believed you. It took him so fast. We weren’t prepared. We weren’t ready. We couldn’t have known. How is it that one month he was well and the next month he was gone?
I’m glad we had these moments. A silly selfie, a spontaneous video. But I wish there was more. It will never be enough. I want to pull him - that walking, talking, joking person - back into reality. And I can’t. It’s still impossible to take in.
HOW IS IT?
How is it that this time last year you were alive, breathing, well?
How is it that you walked, talked, laughed and smiled?
How is it that we captured a moment sat around the table as a family?
How is it that after years of sickness we didn’t see what was coming?
How is it that just a few weeks later was the beginning of the end?
How is it that sickness took your life, your promise, your energy, your song?
How is it that death crept up on us after fearing it for so long?
How is it that I can’t pull you back into reality?
How is it that you’re not with us anymore?
HOW IS IT?
