Confused

I've not managed to write anything since the 19th because, frankly, I've not been able to get a grip on my feelings. On the plus side, there is a sense of relief that a year has passed and that we have now seen the complete cycle of grief, in time at least. I have a vague and guilty feeling that the period of mourning should now be over. Stiff upper lip, stomach in, chest out, time to march onwards. (Only I guess that no-one would notice if I tried to pull my stomach in these days). Also, I do indeed feel a lightening of the load, if only because the second time around has to be easier than the first time. Many peripheral problems and effects have disappeared or decreased. I don't need any medication, except the odd paracetamol to help me sleep. I'm not being drowned by waves of inconsolable grief quite so often as before. To some extent its easier to get out of bed and face the day.


And yet it seems as if all these improvements only amplify my underlying pain and grief. Like rock revealed by the retreating tide, day by day the details of our loss, my loss, are uncovered. So it is that more memories of Kay come back, not in any technicolour sense, but flashes of laughter, glimpses of moments, echos of what once was. I remember how much she liked to hold my hands, climb up my legs and chest until either she was sat on my shoulders or could do a backward roll onto the floor again. She would laugh so much and cry "Again, Daddy, Again". Like a church bell clanging, these memories remind me of what I loved so much, of what I didn't value enough, of what is now lost to me.


There is an almost visible hole in the world where Kay is not. I can feel it, it hovers just out of sight. It is delineated by silence where there should be loud noisy shouting, quiet where there should be children arguing (Kay was always arguing), emptiness where there should be a warm body. These things are becoming clearer, more identifiable as the tide of shock retreats.

Another thing is that I still can't believe that she has gone, in a sense. I know she has gone, I know she's not coming back. But although it sounds contradictory, I still can't believe that the world has been so cruel to us that it's taken Kay away. I mean, what kind of justice is that for all that we went through, for how hard Kay fought, how tough she was, how much we loved her, how much of ourselves we put into saving her? It just doesn't seem fair. In fact it still seems like the antithesis of fair, it seems malevolent.

I'm also noticing a fundamental shift in my feelings towards life in general. There's a perpetually sad fatalistic tint crept into the way that I view things. I have always looked at the world as if it were a sweet shop full of wonderful things to do, challenges to be met, places to go, people to meet. But it now feels to me as if the best days are in the past. Now I really care very little about wonderful things to do or challenges to be met. It's all meaningless. The things that you do turn turn into memories, is all. They condense down to just stories to be recanted over a glass of wine. The things that matter are the people around you. Now I just wish that I had my Kay. I would trade in all my flying and skiing and windsurfing and business successes and everything else that amounts to mere vanity to have my Kay by my side. That would be more than enough for me.  


I was sitting on the sofa last night with Nattie snuggled up against me and I thought that there are no finer moments in life than when there's a small warm child bathing in their parent's love. But Nattie is 9 and soon those moments will become less frequent as she grows up and starts to do more of her own thing. And it feels to me now that that will happen far too quickly, that I have been robbed of my Kay cuddles and that there are not enough Nattie or Lauren cuddles to make up for it. Again, it seems that most of the golden moments, most of the cuddles and snuggles were in the past and the future is relatively bare of them.


And so I sit here and continue to struggle with loss and the ramifications of loss. How does one move forward? How does one reconcile all these things and find a new balance? How does one find value in the future and not just look back with regret? I wish I knew.