I feel sick. I feel sick at the end of every day now, my digestive system battered by stress, my body the victim of unwanted change. There are internal and external signs, marks made and left as if to be read at a future date, like the rings of a tree trunk, a sort of physiological archaeology. The sickness fuels the anger, the anger the sadness, and we are back forever in a position of working, working hard at fixing, solving, changing, just trying to make it all better.
I am taken by surprise by a photograph: of the past, before the cancer. And here now, I have my very own moment of stark clarity, that those moments, since forgotten, were of a time so foreign, so full of a joy, of minor tribulations and niggles and disagreements, so full of everything and nothing at the same time, and never, ever again, to feel as I felt in that photo.
The feeling that this is the southern most point, that the low can't be lower, that the daily fight through acres of this confronting pressure must get milder, that really there must be a corner soon, a lifting of something, a change that enables, an end to the sickness.
To look at my children, fighting their own dark and difficult fight. The eldest almost completely despondent, saved thankfully by the simplest of childlike pleasures: animals, paint, cartoons. The youngest fuelled by affection, soaking it through every pore, with a love for the world that can wash my heart clean.
But: there is a core around me and in me that is my concrete foundation. The people. Here, there, close, far. Some I know well, some barely at all; I am excited, about all of them, I can see hope in the future because of them, and I think we all have a place. No great complex expectations, only joyous, positive anticipation. I have realised some of my value.
Because of my children and the people I will not wither. I would miss too much; and then, really, when all is said and done, quite what would have been the point of it all.
Tuesday, 14 July 2015
Wednesday, 27 May 2015
Tonight
Tonight, 27th May: seven months since Keith died.
This is the saddest night ever says five year old Florence.
My seven year old: Before when Daddy was alive I was normal good Darcey but then Daddy died and it turned me into bad Darcey.
It's not an excuse, it's heartfelt self awareness, I see it in her tears.
Maybe if tomorrow I believe in God I could ask him to bring Daddy back. I want him here now I want him to give me a bedtime kiss - she is sobbing.
I tell them that the feelings in their heads are like clouds, and there’s all sorts of different types of clouds, sad ones, angry ones, bad ones, naughty ones, but above the clouds there is still blue sky, like when you go in an aeroplane and climb up high. I say imagine Daddy is there in that blue sky and he is smiling at you and waving. Imagine the blue sky is in your heart too.
Florence says again this is the saddest night ever.
They consume every joule of energy, I am left with almost none for myself. I often find myself stranded, bereft, lacking the ability to do anything well. The things I need to do are overwhelming to the point of smothering so I step away and don't do them at all. Communication is my current downfall. I have not the drive to respond to emails, phone calls, messages, conversations in the playground. As I result I isolate myself further, I see interaction and correspondence like a bright point of salvation, fading farther out of reach with every dismissed reply. This blog, it is a helpful connection, but there is irony in not knowing if it will be read. I am no longer on Facebook, it was darkening my time not enlightening it, so I closed it down - a selfish act, yes, but my mental health demanded it.
I know the support is there, I haven't the power to reach out and take it.
Summer doesn't look like happening here in Edinburgh, spring is cold and sad faced. School finishes in four weeks and we hit the promise of holidays. There are long evenings, there is lot of light, there is that wonderful Northern feeling I get when I stare out of my window: there are long days, there are long shadows.
The girls have gone to sleep with their silver hearts on their chests, crying. And people are still surprised when I tell them truly how I'm feeling.
This is the saddest night ever says five year old Florence.
My seven year old: Before when Daddy was alive I was normal good Darcey but then Daddy died and it turned me into bad Darcey.
It's not an excuse, it's heartfelt self awareness, I see it in her tears.
Maybe if tomorrow I believe in God I could ask him to bring Daddy back. I want him here now I want him to give me a bedtime kiss - she is sobbing.
I tell them that the feelings in their heads are like clouds, and there’s all sorts of different types of clouds, sad ones, angry ones, bad ones, naughty ones, but above the clouds there is still blue sky, like when you go in an aeroplane and climb up high. I say imagine Daddy is there in that blue sky and he is smiling at you and waving. Imagine the blue sky is in your heart too.
Florence says again this is the saddest night ever.
They consume every joule of energy, I am left with almost none for myself. I often find myself stranded, bereft, lacking the ability to do anything well. The things I need to do are overwhelming to the point of smothering so I step away and don't do them at all. Communication is my current downfall. I have not the drive to respond to emails, phone calls, messages, conversations in the playground. As I result I isolate myself further, I see interaction and correspondence like a bright point of salvation, fading farther out of reach with every dismissed reply. This blog, it is a helpful connection, but there is irony in not knowing if it will be read. I am no longer on Facebook, it was darkening my time not enlightening it, so I closed it down - a selfish act, yes, but my mental health demanded it.
I know the support is there, I haven't the power to reach out and take it.
Summer doesn't look like happening here in Edinburgh, spring is cold and sad faced. School finishes in four weeks and we hit the promise of holidays. There are long evenings, there is lot of light, there is that wonderful Northern feeling I get when I stare out of my window: there are long days, there are long shadows.
The girls have gone to sleep with their silver hearts on their chests, crying. And people are still surprised when I tell them truly how I'm feeling.
Thursday, 5 March 2015
Value
These past two months have been occasionally rapturous, but mostly horrific. The rapture has come from doing some work and buying a flat, the horrific is everything else.
Practically: we are about to move again, but this time into a flat we will own. I want some roots, new ones, ones that can do us for a longer expanse of time. It's a lovely flat and I know we will settle there. We have moved five times in the last five years, twice across hemispheres; this is a real opportunity to sit still for a while.
Over the last two months I have been grappling with all sorts of large scale philosophical questions. Perhaps this is grief, I don't know, it's hard to tell. When I write them down they appear fickle, juvenile. But nonetheless: what are we for, other than to reproduce and maintain the evolution of the human race? What makes us different from each other? What the hell, in summary, is the fucking point?
The conclusions I have come to are as follows: nothing, nothing, and really, I have no fucking idea. But then, in my deepest, darkest moments of sadness dwelling on all of this I stumbled upon a word I hadn't thought of to that point. Value. And herein, in this one moment of minor revelation I believe there lies a key to unlocking a bit of the darkness. Value; and worth.
When my husband was alive, I had value. He gave me meaning, definition, and prominence. We moved away from a place which made me feel worthwhile on a daily basis. I left a job that gave me value in ways I never anticipated. At the moment, the grief and the loss I am feeling extend beyond just that for the man himself, my husband, my best friend and the father of my children. It's the loss of me, the person that he loved and respected. That other half, the part he gave meaning to. The life that gave me meaning on a daily basis. This new way, this new world of me and the girls, it is a hard, lonely place. It is not enough for me to be solely defined by my children: I'm not afraid to admit that. It doesn't mean I love them any less.
Where is your value? Where do you get it from and to whom do you give it in return? For me this is the one thing that distinguishes us from each other. To be a part of something bigger than just us. If I'm just me, what makes me different? What is the point? They're dangerous questions to fall into. But I think if you have something you can give, that in turn can give back to you, I think that makes it a little easier to let them go.
Of course I recognise the value I still have beyond my daily life, I'm not so blinkered I can't see that. It's just right now, at this moment I am too consumed with my grief to move forward. I know I have some definition and I love giving value to others I care about. And my kids, poor things, have no choice but to be defined by me, which makes me smile, particularly when they are dancing around the room in sequins. But losing the man who believed in me as much as I believed in him, losing the meaning and purpose that went with it all; it makes the physical loss even harder to bear, whether I'm wearing sequins or not.
Thanks for reading.
X
Practically: we are about to move again, but this time into a flat we will own. I want some roots, new ones, ones that can do us for a longer expanse of time. It's a lovely flat and I know we will settle there. We have moved five times in the last five years, twice across hemispheres; this is a real opportunity to sit still for a while.
Over the last two months I have been grappling with all sorts of large scale philosophical questions. Perhaps this is grief, I don't know, it's hard to tell. When I write them down they appear fickle, juvenile. But nonetheless: what are we for, other than to reproduce and maintain the evolution of the human race? What makes us different from each other? What the hell, in summary, is the fucking point?
The conclusions I have come to are as follows: nothing, nothing, and really, I have no fucking idea. But then, in my deepest, darkest moments of sadness dwelling on all of this I stumbled upon a word I hadn't thought of to that point. Value. And herein, in this one moment of minor revelation I believe there lies a key to unlocking a bit of the darkness. Value; and worth.
When my husband was alive, I had value. He gave me meaning, definition, and prominence. We moved away from a place which made me feel worthwhile on a daily basis. I left a job that gave me value in ways I never anticipated. At the moment, the grief and the loss I am feeling extend beyond just that for the man himself, my husband, my best friend and the father of my children. It's the loss of me, the person that he loved and respected. That other half, the part he gave meaning to. The life that gave me meaning on a daily basis. This new way, this new world of me and the girls, it is a hard, lonely place. It is not enough for me to be solely defined by my children: I'm not afraid to admit that. It doesn't mean I love them any less.
Where is your value? Where do you get it from and to whom do you give it in return? For me this is the one thing that distinguishes us from each other. To be a part of something bigger than just us. If I'm just me, what makes me different? What is the point? They're dangerous questions to fall into. But I think if you have something you can give, that in turn can give back to you, I think that makes it a little easier to let them go.
Of course I recognise the value I still have beyond my daily life, I'm not so blinkered I can't see that. It's just right now, at this moment I am too consumed with my grief to move forward. I know I have some definition and I love giving value to others I care about. And my kids, poor things, have no choice but to be defined by me, which makes me smile, particularly when they are dancing around the room in sequins. But losing the man who believed in me as much as I believed in him, losing the meaning and purpose that went with it all; it makes the physical loss even harder to bear, whether I'm wearing sequins or not.
Thanks for reading.
X
Tuesday, 30 December 2014
New Year's Invitation
There is a sense in me that I should write something today. This is the time of year, is it not, to review that which the last twelve months has delivered us.
This is how the Bunker girls will approach 2015: turning the curves of our lows into highs, then we will hold hands as we hit the lows again. It promises to be as tough as it will be spectacular: but as Keith himself articulated so beautifully, you can't have one without the other.
So I suppose this is my invitation, from us to you, to be part of it. I would love to think that 2015 will be as much about harnessing your energy as much as it will ours. It won't be easy, it will be hard, but if it involves us Bunkers I can guarantee it will at least be interesting. Thanks so much for all your love, support, friendship and help this year. Who's in for the next?
I am glad in a way of the timing of all this. I am glad I am able to close some parts of this story today, tonight, tomorrow. I intend to leave the remnants of his illness, the dying, behind me, and actually the more time that passes the easier it is to let those parts fade. I'll never forget it, I'll remember the pain, but I can see more clearly the man who was my husband before the cancer. I am grateful for this - I don't need to remember him dying. However it has meant the pain of his loss has intensified. I miss him, in every way, all the time. I miss him holding my hand, kissing my head, laughing, smiling, talking on the phone, sleeping, reading to his children. I miss talking about the news, the sport, our ideas, what to have for dinner, whether we need to buy more toilet rolls. I can't talk to him about our children, our precious children, about the pain they are suffering, the problems they are having, the things they are saying, feeling, thinking. It is a physical pain I feel and it is in every bone, muscle, sinew, nerve and vein.
I write this from Sydney and it is clear to me now how much more I have lost than just my husband. Part of me, it is safe to say, died this year. Such melodrama! I don't care. It feels very real. There is a heaviness to me now that was never present, not even during his illness. A spark, a flame that has been extinguished. However: the space where the flame was has been filled with something else, something promising and different and surprising. There is a confidence and a maturity and a purpose. It is all about the health and happiness of me and my babies, the future, the promise of further adventure. Let me quote something he wrote in the wonderful book he left for his children:
One of the most remarkable things I've found is that since becoming ill, yes I have plummeted the depths and still do regularly and am finding the whole experience incredibly distressing, but I've also had some of the happiest times of my life, which sounds perverse. I've always thought that your ability to feel is like a symmetrical waveform and that to be able to feel intense highs you have to open yourself up emotionally, to make yourself capable of feeling those intense highs; but by opening yourself up emotionally to feel the highs you are also open to feeling terrible lows. Being sick has opened me up again to be able to feel, as well as the lowest possible points, also the highest possible points.
This is how the Bunker girls will approach 2015: turning the curves of our lows into highs, then we will hold hands as we hit the lows again. It promises to be as tough as it will be spectacular: but as Keith himself articulated so beautifully, you can't have one without the other.
So I suppose this is my invitation, from us to you, to be part of it. I would love to think that 2015 will be as much about harnessing your energy as much as it will ours. It won't be easy, it will be hard, but if it involves us Bunkers I can guarantee it will at least be interesting. Thanks so much for all your love, support, friendship and help this year. Who's in for the next?
Saturday, 6 December 2014
How they are
Last night I dreamt I had cancer and merely weeks to live. The single feeling inside me was fear for my daughters, for their future, their wellbeing and their happiness, nothing else.
I am regularly asked how the girls are, how they are coping, feeling. They are suffering terribly. Both of them have separation anxiety, a need to know where I am all the time. They are sleeping badly, having bad dreams, dreams about me, about Daddy.
My five year old has regular bursts of real upset; she has surgically attached herself to the silver heart that contains Keith's ashes. She says, it's not fair that everyone at school has a dad and we don't. She says, I don't believe you, I think he is going to come back. She cries properly, real tears of sadness, and all she says is I want Daddy. I want him to come and give me a kiss before I go to sleep.
My six and a half year old is angry, very angry. At school and with others she is contained, controlled, comfortable. At home she takes it out on me. She is abusive, verbally and physically, hitting, screaming. I get her to hit pillows, rip up newspaper, shout. We read books about death and she soaks them up. I tell her it's alright, it won't last forever. She writes her feelings down and keeps the book under her pillow. She made worry dolls from plasticine and talks to them at night. Then she tells me, she says, I am worried about four things. I am worried I will get sick and die, that Daddy will never come back, that great-grandma will die, that we will never go home. She means Sydney, she is desperate to go 'home', to the place where we were last where everything was OK.
I have to be careful to not attribute difficult behaviour solely to the loss of their father: they are for the most part normal five and six year old siblings, delightful and infuriating in equal measure. However I am furious that part of the innocence has already been chipped away. Isn't that the greatest sadness in the world? When children have hope and love and safety ripped from them. Mine are a bit broken at the moment, but with time they will be stitched back together, and as Bunkers, they will be stronger as a result.
People ask how to be with them; be normal. Treat them like kids. Try not to overcompensate with things like sugar and presents (don't tell them I said that) and don't worry, they'll be ok, in time, I'm sure.
I am regularly asked how the girls are, how they are coping, feeling. They are suffering terribly. Both of them have separation anxiety, a need to know where I am all the time. They are sleeping badly, having bad dreams, dreams about me, about Daddy.
My five year old has regular bursts of real upset; she has surgically attached herself to the silver heart that contains Keith's ashes. She says, it's not fair that everyone at school has a dad and we don't. She says, I don't believe you, I think he is going to come back. She cries properly, real tears of sadness, and all she says is I want Daddy. I want him to come and give me a kiss before I go to sleep.
My six and a half year old is angry, very angry. At school and with others she is contained, controlled, comfortable. At home she takes it out on me. She is abusive, verbally and physically, hitting, screaming. I get her to hit pillows, rip up newspaper, shout. We read books about death and she soaks them up. I tell her it's alright, it won't last forever. She writes her feelings down and keeps the book under her pillow. She made worry dolls from plasticine and talks to them at night. Then she tells me, she says, I am worried about four things. I am worried I will get sick and die, that Daddy will never come back, that great-grandma will die, that we will never go home. She means Sydney, she is desperate to go 'home', to the place where we were last where everything was OK.
I have to be careful to not attribute difficult behaviour solely to the loss of their father: they are for the most part normal five and six year old siblings, delightful and infuriating in equal measure. However I am furious that part of the innocence has already been chipped away. Isn't that the greatest sadness in the world? When children have hope and love and safety ripped from them. Mine are a bit broken at the moment, but with time they will be stitched back together, and as Bunkers, they will be stronger as a result.
People ask how to be with them; be normal. Treat them like kids. Try not to overcompensate with things like sugar and presents (don't tell them I said that) and don't worry, they'll be ok, in time, I'm sure.
Tuesday, 2 December 2014
Import
Last week I uploaded all the photos from my iPhone for the first time since I acquired it in August. As I sat and watched the contents flick through on my screen it occurred to me how accurately the photos illustrate much of the last four months. So I've stuck them together and here you have it, a snapshot of the Bunkers from 2nd August 2014 to 26th November; the time we returned to the UK up to my birthday last Wednesday. Keith died on 23rd October. Big love X
Sunday, 23 November 2014
Drunk
I am a bit confused as to the new purpose of this blog. Prior to Keith's death it was about his illness and its effect on us, what am I to write about now? I don't want to write about our grief. Why would I do that? It seems pointless to me to go into detail about how awful things are. Not least because I am regularly told grief is a 'process' that I must 'go through'; great, none of this is special or different, I am merely ticking boxes of symptoms like everybody else. Google those then; that's how we are.
No part of me feels like an individual. No part of me feels special. I feel like one of millions exhibiting the same predictable behaviour as everyone else. Everybody has their own shit, and it doesn't make us individuals. There is no comfort in this. I don't want to know about other peoples experiences of losing people, it doesn't help one iota. In my world and my universe nothing can help, not any knowledge from anywhere, no experience of knowing 'it will pass'. No it won't, my husband died, nothing can help.
I'm special to my kids, I'm special to my mum but mostly I was special to my husband. Now he's gone, there is really nothing special left. I look at other families of strangers in the street, families of four and think, no, this is not fair. I imagine they look at me and they can tell and they breathe a sigh of relief to think it happened to someone else and not to them, and then the dads reach for their daughters' hands to cross the road, and I think this is not fair. I look other men and I think, my husband was a better father than you, he was a better man than you will ever be; this is not fair.
All this anger, all this pain it's 'normal', it 'will pass' and change into something 'different'. I don't care. I don't want to be normal if this is how it feels.
I am not looking forward to the build up to Christmas. People rush around me buying presents for loved ones. The intimacy of being given presents by one's partner is on the long list of things ripped away from me. The superficiality of making it all about the kids feels plastic like the very presents they will receive. I imagine I will do much the same as I did last night: drink too much wine and send attention seeking messages from the phone that is permanently glued to my hand, my desperate connection to the outside world. They should add that to the list of grief symptoms: gets drunk and posts stupid pictures on Facebook. Then people will just think, oh it's ok, she's a grieving widow...nothing to see here. It's normal.
x
No part of me feels like an individual. No part of me feels special. I feel like one of millions exhibiting the same predictable behaviour as everyone else. Everybody has their own shit, and it doesn't make us individuals. There is no comfort in this. I don't want to know about other peoples experiences of losing people, it doesn't help one iota. In my world and my universe nothing can help, not any knowledge from anywhere, no experience of knowing 'it will pass'. No it won't, my husband died, nothing can help.
I'm special to my kids, I'm special to my mum but mostly I was special to my husband. Now he's gone, there is really nothing special left. I look at other families of strangers in the street, families of four and think, no, this is not fair. I imagine they look at me and they can tell and they breathe a sigh of relief to think it happened to someone else and not to them, and then the dads reach for their daughters' hands to cross the road, and I think this is not fair. I look other men and I think, my husband was a better father than you, he was a better man than you will ever be; this is not fair.
All this anger, all this pain it's 'normal', it 'will pass' and change into something 'different'. I don't care. I don't want to be normal if this is how it feels.
I am not looking forward to the build up to Christmas. People rush around me buying presents for loved ones. The intimacy of being given presents by one's partner is on the long list of things ripped away from me. The superficiality of making it all about the kids feels plastic like the very presents they will receive. I imagine I will do much the same as I did last night: drink too much wine and send attention seeking messages from the phone that is permanently glued to my hand, my desperate connection to the outside world. They should add that to the list of grief symptoms: gets drunk and posts stupid pictures on Facebook. Then people will just think, oh it's ok, she's a grieving widow...nothing to see here. It's normal.
x
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