The Vision

With this and that, with the thing I'm dealing with, me and on behalf of the girls, you often live in the mind. You have to with grief. You also live in the now of course because you have to do that as well. The phrases I struggle with, "getting on," "getting through it,"  and god do I hate this one, " Are you baring up?" or worse still, " You seem OK." People only mean well. I know!

But what on earth does this mean? OK?

I'm allowed to drive to work am I not? Laugh occasionally, smile, share good times with friends and family? This is called love isn't it? Is this getting on, or is it mere coping? Why shouldn't I be entitled to do this? This is my entitlement. Selfishly! But not for one second, not for a moment do I ever believe I'm any where near ' through it'.. That means it's a tunnel, dark and somewhat nebulous. No answers. If that is what is meant by getting through it, I haven't even begun, can't start the motor, it's broken down in a lay by....But reading these words back I sound angry. I'm not most of the time, but if this is a journey then I have to live in the mind, in the imagination and make believe. In my tunnel there are other people, we fish around with one another shuffling about with batteries to light our way, we make one another laugh as they drop to the floor and get humorously impatient with one another (as Sue and I did)  as we struggle to clip plastic fixings together with cold hands. Bumping one another for fun. Kids kick stones and maybe, maybe we can see light or we shine it nonetheless in the distance and it gives us hope..

There is this great space of nothing now and I can totally give in to its eternal, unanswerable non-end. But this vision thing reminds me that she left a mark that fills this hole, it was her existence. Her being . She was and therefore I have to be now. I am! End of it, grow up.... I don't want to just visit this world and simply open up various doors as a father. That's not being a father. That's a doorkeeper. I want to live in this world and I want my girls to do the same thing. To live, exist and thrive.  That's our expectation our learning entitlement.  

In my mind another vision, they shift constantly. Perfect days; sunshine, Lily and Louise laughing, running and floating, being confident and Suze. Suze still walks in and out of my imagination constantly. She comes into our kitchen as we're eating a meal, smiling. She kisses Lily goodnight in her bed, she walks into friends houses when I'm there, she sits by me in the car up to work.  She always wants to come back to Lily, Louise and I first of all, to check on us. I like it when she comes back to us first. It makes me cry. I think she does it to check I am doing a good job. To reassure me. My vision jolts me and reminds me to do a good job. To be a father, to be that and to also be something else, a mother now! So I wear an apron, I cook,  I wash up, I clean, I hang wet things up. I change the sheets. I think I know what it is to care, I think I know what it is to love! I hope I do!