Anger

Take a breath, take a deep breath, we are almost at eleven months and fast approaching the first anniversary of the day Keith died.

My anger is astonishing. Surprising and overwhelming. I am furious. Furious for me and for my kids. My eldest, seven and a half, suffering a desperately sad swell of emotion as she watched her sister turn six without her father there to see. 

I really really really really miss him

I really want him to come back

It's not fair that other people have a dad and we don't

It's so long ago since I saw him

There's nothing that can make me feel like he's here

There is nothing here that has been healed by time, it oppresses itself upon her, memories slipping, voices fading. There's no comfort to give so I cry on her shoulder, letting her turn the tables to look after me, bring me cuddly toys and glasses of water. She is less violent now, but more sad - am I supposed to choose which I prefer? She sees that the world has been thrown around the sun and we are back where it started, a year ago, in autumn, when the leaves were turning and we were wearing boots and scarves. She is worried what we might do on the day Keith died, she brings it up, not me. More able to grasp time now she is a year older. And I think, good grief, was she really only six? Her sadness makes me seethe, her childhood spoiled by this rotting event. This sort of sadness should never be present in a child. 

I am sick and I am angry as I move from one fog to the next. I am angry for the career and the people and the futures that I had and now haven't. The feeling that the edges of my character have been rubbed away so I lack definition or form. The pure unadulterated pain for my children and the ignorant, clumsy manner with which I manage it. I am sick of trying to see the bright side, the things I have and the ways, all the ways in which we could be worse off. I am given adjectives designed to flatter and empower, but I am not courageous or brave or strong. I am lost in a maze of discarded dreams and basic survival taking the path that opens up before me in the least courageous way possible. My eldest describes her anger as though she has flames in her throat; well mine are in every cell, burning low, dark, and constant.