84. I still look for his face.

This whole grief malarkey is a complicated thing isn’t it. So I know I’ve never dealt with the losses of either of my parents and I’ve now compartmentalised it so deeply that i don’t know how to contemplate grief anymore.

So even though it’s been 3 years since my dad passed away, I still fully expect to see him every time I go into town shopping, especially in Wilko’s and almost have to remind my self each time that I’m doing it. I look for his face everywhere I’ve ever bumped into him before. I often do a double take too of some people I see too.

Maybe that’s how much I would love to see him again, looking fit and healthy just the once more. To have all the conversations that we never got to have when he became ill. To hear him crack one of his jokes. For him to just help me with all the DIY I’m currently deep in.

I have no idea which of the 5 stages of grief I’m stuck in at the moment but stuck I most definitely am.

82. It feels like just another mask.

So I’m almost 4 weeks in and I can say I’m definitely feeling different but I’m not sure if that’s in a good way or not. I’ve always avoided taking any medication, well apart from my favourite pink painkiller tablets, because I feared I would be left feeling even more numb. The happy pills (and I use that term very loosely) have just simply replaced the masks that I struggle to remove. Now there is no middle ground, I’m either chemically faking happy or lower than normal. We won’t even discuss the tiredness that hits me like a tidal wave but keeps me so high that I can’t sleep either.

Onwards on to box 2 of the colourful pills we go.

74. The day I hoped would never come

Today is a milestone day. I start on a road that I didn’t want to travel but my life left me with no choice.

Is it the cowards way out to take drugs or not? Although I feel like a failure and a broken coward, it took more courage than I ever thought I had to make the phone call last week to the doctors. To reach out to someone to ask for some proper help and know that I would get that help instead of feeling like a burden.

So my first tablet is waiting for me tomorrow morning. It would be an understatement if I said I’m not nervous to take it and I only hope they help as I don’t see any alternative anymore.

68. Finally home to take off the mask.

I like nothing better than being able to take off my mask when I get home and let down my walls and be the person that I hide from the world every day. Finally for now it’s off until Monday.

It’s been a really hard few weeks since the beginning of May and the clouds have barely lifted regardless of how much I’ve longed for them too.

And whilst I’ve felt this low, I honestly don’t think I’ve felt so unwanted, unappreciated as I have done over the last two weeks and I’ve had some really shitty jobs over the years.

Let’s hope things start to get sunnier soon.

64. Thank you for today.

I just want to say thank you to those rare individuals that deserve my thanks today.

If you could read the full blog post I put up this morning and not just the title then you may understand why my day was so hard.

Fortunately for me you can’t but take it from me, it took just the one person to reach out to me this morning to tell me that they were there for me today if I needed them. That made the difference to how the rest of my day went so just remember the power that each of us has in each other’s lives.

59. 3 years

It’s been a long 3 years.

Ironically this post number falls on the same number of my family home. The house in which both of my parents died.

I don’t even know where the last 3 years have gone. In a way it feels like an eternity and in equal measures, I remember it all like it was just last week.

The last few days of my dads life were beyond heartbreaking for me. I could see him rapidly going down hill, he had tried to end it by chucking himself out of bed a few days before he died but the carers had found him in time. He didn’t eat anything in the last 4 weeks of his life and watching him slowly waste away before my eyes was so hard to see. There had never been much to him physically when he was fit and well (Oh why didn’t I inherit his bone structure instead of my mums) but when I discovered that he only weighed 36kg when he was in hospital I was so devastated that he had become so frail. I didn’t even recognize the face that looked back at me from the bed, my dad was gone way before he went physically.

My dad was the person I spent most of my time with growing up. I’d help him in his garden, I’d wait eagerly at the front door for him to come home from work each night and I spent every weekend, all weekend with him visiting my Nan and the local working men’s club. He came from an era where love wasn’t freely given so although he may have never told me or showered me with love I know that he did deep down.

It’s sadly ironic that the last words that my dad heard before he died was that Faye says she loves you when I’d never heard him say the word love to me in my whole life.

As the anniversary approaches on the 4th, I’ll remember the man who would pose with a giant homegrown cucumber and a runner bean in his mouth and not the shell of a man that cancer destroyed.

Fly safe with the angels up there dad and know that I’ll always miss you. I’ll raise a glass to you of something you’d appreciate on Thursday. I know it’s going to be a tough one this year so be extra kind to me if you see me in person over the next few days. Make sure you have an air hug for me in your pocket.

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