Don't believe everything you read on the Internet

I'm stuck at an awful impasse. My head is bursting with stuff that I need to talk or  write about, as I have done in the past. The problem is that fewer and fewer of these things are about the direct consequences of losing Kay. Increasingly I'm struggling with the indirect consequences, problems and issues that have arisen or are arising as a result of losing Kay and that involve other people or things outside our immediate private lives.


The internet is a wonderful thing and this blog has helped me enormously during the last couple of years. But it's now reached a limit. There are things that one simply cannot blog about if one is not to upset others or make matters worse. The effect of this limit is that really, you can't believe everything you read because stuff that affects other people or that would make things worse is being filtered out. The picture that you're getting is missing information necessary for a complete understanding.


On the other hand, one could argue the contrary: that by respecting the limit, one is forced to take a more balanced approach to sensitive matters and that therefore the picture that is conveyed is more accurate to the underlying nature of the situation. I don't know. All I know is that I'm struggling with a load of things for which I simply have no outlet. 


I dare not go further. 


What I'm learning in general is that the loss of a 10 year old child, the loss of my Kay, has repercussions that last longer and go much deeper than I could possibly imagine. We spent last week in France, at the house where the kids have spent so much time playing and growing up. Where I have taken some of my favorite photos. Where, when Kay was being treated for leukemia the first time around, we used to go because we got so much peace from just being there. 


However things have changed. It's not the same anymore. Kay's absence is much louder there, the clearest change being that Natasha has lost her playmate. Instead of building huts and running around outside with Kay, she now spends more time indoors on the computer, in a book or in her own world. She doesn't seem to mind, but for me its a source of constant pain. 


Last Sunday I was feeling extremely depressed and it occurred to me that my overall happiness peaked during the summer of 2009. We had a couple of lovely weeks at the house and then a week on Elba. I sailed the Laser with the girls across the bay and we lay on the beach at night and watched the August asteroid shower and we were a largely happy family. The girls were all at an age of simplicity and were a delight to behold. I would not have possibly been able to recognize this at the time, we had our share of family problems, but looking back I realize that I took so much enjoyment from all three of my children, without even realizing it.


And so the recognition came last week that I am truly and firstly a father - that's the thing that contributes the most to my "quality of life". Losing Kay means the loss of so much of that quality of life and I cannot possibly imagine a summer in the future where I'm ever likely to be as happy as I was in 2009. Plus, there's all the other shit to which I have alluded, that flows and flows as a consequence. It's a sobering thought to realize that the chances are that most of the happiness in your life is behind you.


On a final note, so far in this process of grief I have largely been spared a sense of regret. But this is now changing. I look back on the last 10 years of my life and think what I complete idiot I have been. Again, I reach the limits of what can be blogged. But suffice it to say that there were moments that I could have made different choices and that I should have made different choices. Yes, I know this is all in the past, but we are ultimately the sum of our actions and too many of mine have been ill-considered.


I may not have been able to do much about the length of Kay's life, but oh how I wish I had "grokked" it more deeply, more slowly instead of running around doing a load of stupid things.