The flashpoint

In The Flash, I was deeply affected by the Flashpoint storyline -- where Barry Allen travels back in time to stop his Mum from being murdered. He returns to an altered present where he's living a contented, ordinary life with both parents.

He'd give up his superpowers and being a hero just to be able to live a quiet, normal life with his parents.

***

Recently, I've been having dreams about my parents. Ordinary, normal, domestic scenes – there are no flying whales on your wedding day, your cat isn't the pope, I couldn't even tell you what does happen in the dreams. What makes them memorable is my folks are about 20 years younger.

My Dad doesn't have dementia, he can walk and move about all on his own, Mum isn't frail and worn-out and white-haired from being his full-time carer.
Nothing prepares you for seeing your parents get old. Even getting old yourself, the most unexpected thing to happen to a person, is less confronting than watching my parents declining health with their advancing years.

Dad got food poisoning one day. You'd think such a day would live in infamy, but I don't even remember how long ago it was. I think 13 years ago. He was out for dinner with his Rotary club, like any other 'dinner meeting', and several of them got food poisoning. The usual story, bad hygiene practices. One of his friends got so dehydrated from being sick he ended up in hospital.

For Dad, what happened was he wasn't keeping anything in his stomach long enough to digest it, and his various drugs stopped being absorbed. His blood pressure went up. He had a stroke. In many ways, I lost him that day. He's not been the same since, though other minor strokes have followed in the intervening years.

His personality changed from then, he stopped working or volunteering in the community. Even what he liked reading changed. The man I knew and loved as my Dad changed, and his decline has been heartbreaking.

***

He was hospitalised after another stroke at Easter last year. We were camping in the outback splendour of Karijini National Park and in a brief moment of mobile signal, I got a message from my brother. Mum, as usual, hadn't wanted to worry me, hadn't wanted to spoil my trip. Dad was fine, she said.

Despite a global pandemic, I investigated if I could get permission to visit. Who did I need to ask to grant me permission to leave Australia, and would I be allowed to return? Maybe I could have got it, had I ever been able to get a simple letter from my Dad's GP outlining his health condition and why it was important for me to visit then, not later. Whether anyone ever asked his GP for that letter, I don't know, and I'll never know if I would have been granted that permission.

Just over a year later, with national and state borders open (and more active Covid cases than we'd ever seen) I got to make that visit. I hadn't been back since 2019 and I felt acutely aware that every month passing without seeing my Dad was a gamble. This week was meant to be the first day after the end of a temporary work contract; the contract got extended but I went anyway. You can push your luck too far.

***

These days, Dad is now mostly confined to his armchair. He can walk short distances with a walker but says he'll fall if he goes too far. The result is he can make it to the bathroom on his own, and most of the time he makes it there in time. He watches TV, constantly changing channels, unable to read what the on-screen TV guide says. He turns it off and commands Alexa to play the radio. He changes stations. He tells Alexa to read to him from Sherlock Holmes. He turns the volume up. He cycles between these things all day, barely giving any long enough to hold his interest.

The hardest thing of all is he has no filter. He tells me honestly how he's afraid to die, that he wakes up early in the morning and lying there, unable to fall back asleep, he worries about death. What it will feel like to die. How horrible it will be for my Mum to find him. 

I try and reassure him, you've a long way to go yet, you'll live to be 100! You'll get letters from the Queen!  He whines; I don't want to be 100. I don't know what to tell him. Occasionally, he holds my hand, tells me he's proud of me. If I don't see you again, I want you to know... or if I don't make it... 

I tell him there's something I need to go do. I'm 41 years old and I'm crying in my bedroom alone.

***

One day when we're out, he seems to have some kind of attack. We're telling him it's time to go home, but he's just staring. He's awake, but he's not responding, not moving. We're talking to him, asking if he's ok, asking if he can hear us. One hand is gripping the table. He starts to drool. I think to myself, is this it? Is this when I lose him? 

After what is probably seconds but feels like an hour, he comes back. He can't walk, but we have his wheelchair. Soon he's himself again. What passes for himself when he's a hollow shell of the man who used to be my Dad.

It's called a TIA, a transient ischaemic attack. A minor stroke with symptoms that resolve within hours to a day. Nobody else in the family seems all that alarmed, he's had them before, he's already on all the medication he can be, the hospital can't do anything. But it's a warning, and a reminder that I could lose him any day.

We're going back at Christmas, for a proper visit. I only hope that I don't have go back for his funeral before then.

Long forgotten connection

Not so long ago, I got a "friend request" on Facebook from someone I didn't recognise.  I looked at the face, and I looked at the name, and I puzzled over it.  After a while and some digging through their profile, I finally worked it out -- this girl was my brother's ex-girlfriend.  From about 15 years ago.

I have no idea if my brother still has contact with this girl, but I expect he doesn't -- he isn't big into social networking, has limited contact with people from his past, and has long since moved away from our home town.

I found it more than a little creepy -- I mean, sure, we were quite close once.  When I was 15.  I think everyone drifted apart and found their own lives when my brother and this girl went to seperate universities, and I don't think it's unkind to say I've never really given her that much thought since.  What made it particularly weird for me was seeing that she had already added my parents as friends -- I wanted to tell her not to do that, to leave them in peace, they probably don't know that you aren't obligated to accept every request you receive.

Shunning her request, I thought no more of it.

Skip forward a few weeks or a month or however-long it was.  Another friend request turns up, from a girl named "Kate".  Following directly on from the weekend when I'd been talking to a friend and his fiance -- who is named Kate -- I accepted without thinking.  Then I noticed the little details -- about how our only mutual friends were my family, and I realised I'd accidentally accepted the long-forgotten sibling's ex.  Figuring it would be mean to delete her again, I moved her to Limited Profile so that she'd have restricted access to me and my life.

Seems that wasn't enough, since accepting her request was apparently like saying "please contact me further" and she sent me a long email.  Not much of it stands out, apart from the bit where she mentions having emailed my brother but not got a reply, and how she'd been looking at the photos of his boy.  I still find the whole thing more than a little bit weird.

I'm currently in a dilemma, despite all of the above.  I feel bad for not replying.  I know that I'm slightly offended when my emails go completely ignored, so part of me wants to send something -- however brief and short on details.  But the other part continues to insist that to reply will only encourage her -- and whether deliberate or not, my brother's tactic of not responding might be a better one.

Your Daddy's Gonna Die

One night, I had a dream where this crow came and said: "Your aunt is gonna die."

I was so scared, I woke up my parents, but they said it was just a dream and to get back to bed.
 
But the next morning, my Aunt Stacy was dead.
                                    
It wasn't three weeks later when the crow came back to me in a dream and said, "Your daddy's gonna die."  I didn't know what to do.
                    
I finally told my father, but he said: "Oh, not to worry." But I could see he was rattled.

The next morning, he wasn't himself, he kept looking around, waiting for something to drop on his head -- because the crow didn't say how it was gonna happen, just those words: "Your daddy's gonna die."
 
He left home early that day, and was gone a long time.  When he finally came back, he looked terrible, like he was waiting for the axe to fall all day.

He said to my mother: "I've just had the worst day of my life."
"You think you've had a bad day?" she said, "This morning, the milkman dropped dead on the porch." (extract from 'Big Fish' (2003) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0319061/)

In the winter of 2007, my aunt died of cancer. She was my Dad's older sister, and as a kid she'd played a big part in raising him in a big family in east London, in post-war Britain.

My aunt had been in remission, but when the disease returned she chose not to fight it. I'm not sure if anyone knows for certain how long she had known for, and kept quiet.

I signed up to trek the Inca Trail in Peru the following year, to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support -- giving something back to the people who had given so much care and support to my family when it was needed most.

My aunt is still missed by everyone who knew her, it doesn't seem right that she's simply not around any more.

I recently got the news my uncle, that is one of my Dad's older brothers, was ill and in hospital. He'd become confused, disorientated, and was sent for tests. Just about the worst fear was confirmed: it was a brain tumour, and because of the size and scale of the tumour, it was inoperable. This kind of cancer is often considered secondary to a possibly-undiscovered or undiagnosed primary cancer elsewhere in the body. The upshot is it's not a good prognosis. It's heartbreaking, and I can't decide if it's a blessing or a curse that he doesn't know he's dying. It's certainly not easy on his family that he often doesn't recognise them.

But it's the entirely selfish element that brings me to this post. I'm scared now my Daddy's gonna die. This is two of his older siblings, and I think it was Hodgkin's Lymphoma that killed his own Father at an early age. It's been a long time since my Dad thought he was going to die young as well, like there was some in-built early expiry date -- but I can tell he is quietly worried as well. What if these aren't isolated incidents, but instead a trend, a sign of things to come -- not just for him, but for all his siblings?

All I can do is offer support, to try not to worry unduly about something that might not happen -- but remain wary -- and start planning another fundraising challenge, to raise money for the people who need it.

Tonight I dream of home

I dreamed the other night I won a round-the-world ticket.

Generally speaking, I am opposed to the idea of writing in my blog about dreams I have.  However crazy and funny dreams our may seem to us, their intended audience, generally once we start writing about how we had this dream that we were totally at the mall, but there was a lion there, and suddenly it wasn't a lion after all and everyone was in school doing detention... it becomes something worse than just inane.

But I will make an exception just. this. once.

Because I didn't just dream I had won a round-the-world ticket, but I dreamed I was going to have a grand adventure.  And that I was going to take my uncle Patrick with me.  My uncle Patrick is probably somewhere in his late 40's these days, he has multiple sclerosis, and is in a care home.  It wasn't meant to be a zany and wacky idea in my dream, but perhaps I just thought that I really wanted him to see the world?

The dream wasn't really anything more than just that simple concept.  But I woke up unexpectedly, and as is often the case was filled with a strange manic idea that this dream was the most brilliant idea ever.  It happens a lot, where I'll be convinced that the dream I just had will make an excellent plot for a book, or a film.  In this case, I went one further -- I thought it was a fantastic idea to act out.  And so what if I hadn't actually won any competition?  I would contact the relevant PR departments of companies like Virgin and pitch them my idea -- they should give me a pair of round-the-world plane tickets, and in turn I would take my uncle with me and blog about this incredible journey we would then take.  No doubt I would also be showered with fame and fortune and never have to do an honest day's work ever again. 

I fell back asleep with delusions if brilliance running through my head, of how I could say he was swapping Clacton-on-Sea for Cape Town, for Casablanca, for Calcutta, for California...

...and I woke up again an undetermined time later with a slight feeling of foolishness, like when you wake up with hazy memories of drunken stupidity.  In the sobering daylight my brilliant idea had some major flaws: my uncle is disabled and he is in a care home.  Somehow I don't think he is in a suitable position for making long journeys by air, on the semi-regular basis such a trip would involve.  He would probably also need at least one carer with him, and I expect a large supply of prescription medication.  Aside from any of that, he probably wouldn't even want to go on such a journey -- I can't really imagine it being top of his things to do list.  While I am sure he would like to see the world in theory, in practice he probably wouldn't enjoy it.

I am bemused as to why my subconscious immediately seized upon the idea of the two of us like some kind of fucked up buddy movie.  I guess something sensible like dreaming I was going on such an amazing journey with the girl would have been all too obvious.  I can sort of see in some ways what it was saying, there is a genuine desire in me to help people along with a craving for adventure and excitement, so I guess my uncle in this case was symbolic.  The dream's themes make a whole lot more sense than my half-asleep manic delusions though, and I think I'll stick to daydreaming about travel with the girl instead -- and maybe I'll send my uncle one of my photo art prints from Peru or something for Christmas.

Jupiter in space agencies' sights

I've been teh suck and not updated nearly enough recently.

I can report that my recent foray into not taking medication has ended. That is, after relying instead on vigorous exercise and strength of character, I have given and gone back. I was beginning to feel decidedly shit and unable to cope at times, so I decided enough was enough. Since I have restarted I still have my moments: short spells of despair, almost sickening bouts of worry and anxiety, but overall I am much better off. We have to admit that there is "something wrong" with me, and really there's no getting around it. It's a little depressing in itself to have to admit it. It might well be a brain 'chemical' thing -- some people are diabetic, or anaemic, and reliant on certain supplements of whatever kind. Perhaps I have a defective brain in a similar sort of way. For the record, I have begun to wonder when I am not taking my medication if previous medical professional diagnoses of bipolar disorder might not have been too wide of the mark. But either way, it doesn't matter.

Also in the news here this week is that despite every intention of leaving my body to medical science -- albeit while I am still very much alive and kicking -- has also met with failure. I was invited to attend a screening for a trial that would have paid me about two grand for my time, trialling a drug for Alzheimer's and ADD. But the time they wanted was about two weeks, and there was no way I could take it off work. This week I discovered that I have no holiday left whatsoever to take this tax year, and only have 13 days available to me to take between April and October. This means most likely that the time I spend in Peru I am going to have to take as unpaid leave -- I can consider that my own charitable contribution.

The obvious drawback of not being able to take part in a clinical drug trial is it is going to be a lot harder to earn money quickly. Possibly less unpleasant, maybe even safer, but more difficult.

I'm still resentful of my car needing £700+ worth of repairs at Christmas. It's no use crying over spilled milk, but I would never have chosen to spend that money frivolously -- not that keeping my car on the road is frivolous. But sometimes I think "I could have bought a great big television with that money, but I wouldn't have" or I think how I could fly to Barcelona and back like 6 times for that amount. Sometimes I go into a record shop just to browse, and I will pause over a CD -- I don't buy myself things often, I'll think. But then the idea of spending the money for no reason makes me feel ill, and I put it back. Like I say -- crying over it (like I did at the time, to my shame) doesn't change a thing, and the girl and I need a car for a whole host of reasons, so it was important. But that doesn't stop me resenting it. Stupid to resent an inanimate object, I know.

Speaking of work and earning money... Dedicated readers who have read my old posts, or longer term followers who have been with me for longer, may remember a post last October when I gleefully announced having got a job. I opened the champagne for dinner with the girl -- a special bottle I had been saving for when I got what I considered a "proper" job, a job that I wanted and wasn't just a stopgap, and that I felt was advancing my career. It was a year's contract, but a bloody good opportunity just the same. We remember? Good.

On Tuesday a notice went out on email to all office staff that there would be a briefing from the MD at 1430 in the conference room. Nobody was sure what it was about, but we were under no illusions: it wasn't going to be good news. I did speculate that perhaps with all the budget cuts and general "credit crunch" doom and gloom they would be announcing that in order to try and cheer up staff and raise morale they would be buying us an office kitten. Shockingly, this was not what the announcement was. In the minutes before the meeting, word got out that there was to be a merger. Nobody was quite sure whether to believe it, or what the details were. I then got blind-copied into an emailed press release from my head of PR. The release was going out to all trade press, announcing the merging of my company and a neighbouring region's.

There was lots of words like cost savings and efficiencies and stream linings, but the important thing to those of us in the office -- and presumably the other region's offices -- is that there are going to be job losses. We expect a lot of the job losses will be higher up -- there will be duplication of various positions, but nobody feels they are safe. We don't know when cuts will be, and we don't even know where this new amalgamated company will be based.

I feel particularly unsettled as my position was only "interim" to begin with. I've had the uncertainty that if the girl whose job I am doing wants to come back after maternity leave, then I would have to find my own way. Now it's impossible to know what will happen to me or to my job, cue random bouts of despair and almost sickening spells of anxiety and worry. I felt very fortunate to get this job, I felt so many times I had been passed over or fallen at the last hurdle when applying for jobs I could do so well -- this to me represented so much. Now I'm afraid it's all going to disappear again.

Up until now, I hadn't been directly or personally too affected by the now-official recession. Fuel costs have fallen by 25%; this meant I had more spare money. VAT was cut: again, more money for me. I was still getting paid the same. But of course it couldn't last forever. I was never unaffected, for months my older brother has been on the brink of bankruptcy -- to the point where my parents have given him all of their savings and more to keep him afloat. Finally he has had to give up ownership of his business, but luckily has escaped bankruptcy. So I was never completely unaffected -- just the same, when it's suddenly your own company, and you and your own colleagues looking at possible redundancy, you feel the impact.

I don't know why I thought I would get away unscathed. I've friends who have been made redundant two or three times in recent years, my own Mum has been made redundant at least twice -- although she usually manages to come back brighter. Which isn't bad for someone with a history of depression themselves.

Anyway. Without ending the post with thoughts of doom, gloom or the like I am pleased to report that having the girl's love and support makes a world of difference, and the next post should really be about valentine's day...

P.S. You haven't missed anything, this post doesn't have anything to do with Jupiter. I was just stuck for a title so I used a news headline.

Pension Book

Over dinner with my parents this evening, I asked my Dad if he would be so kind the next time he talks to my uncle (or one of my many uncles) to ask him for contact details for my cousins. Whenever we see each other we're all like "We must meet up and go for drinks!" but we forget the important part of actually exchanging details.

I explained that I already have another two of my cousins contact details after I found them on Facebook, but the cousins I am pestering my Dad for are all a few years older than me, and I don't think they really "do" social networking.

Life then took a turn for the very surreal when my Dad announced he was on Facebook. I tried very hard to snort lager out through my nose at this point. Really? I asked him. Yes, he said, I signed up once when I was looking for old school friends, but I didn't find anyone.

At this point I really couldn't stop laughing, it was the most absurd thing I have ever heard -- but I quickly realised he was talking about friends reunited, which we all know includes everyone you went to school with trying to pretend they are earning 100k a year and living in Beverley Hills. I think the last time I updated it I claimed I had moved to a Buddhist monastery.

My Dad sadly has no idea what Facebook is -- I say sadly because I would love to see what groups he would join. Perhaps "retired accountants kick arse" or "I like to talk when you are trying to watch a film", or just "I spend so much time on my own I have long conversations with the cat, including pauses for the cat to respond in".

Update: I underestimated Dad and clearly shouldn't be so quick to make assumptions about him! He really is on Facebook -- and really did join to find old school friends -- but it seems he hasn't done anything on it since the day he joined.

Letter boxes

In some kind of attempt to tidy my room today, I sat on my bedroom floor with a shoebox filled with old letters. The box has become over-full and wasn't really doing a very good job of containing these various missives. Since I've recently bought some new shoes, I decided that all my postcards will get a box of their own and I would have a quick sift through the letters I have -- just to see if there are any that don't need to be kept.

It's a very strange feeling revisiting the past by way of old letters. It's like a form of archaeology, digging through the layers and discovering details about how a life was lead.

There were all the letters I received from Kath over the years -- from the very first pages she wrote to me when I advertised for a penpal, letters written on coloured paper and in colourful envelopes. Song lyrics written on the back of envelopes or heading the tops of pages. I didn't read the letters again, although sometimes I would have to unfold pages to see who the letter was from. There was pictures from festivals, pictures of nights in pubs. I found a small pack of black and white photographs, dating back to the time I stayed with her for a weekend when I was 17. Old pictures of Manchester, pictures of people sat on the grass in the sun. I've considered throwing away all of these letters from Kath before -- we've previously fallen out and even though our differences were resolved we've grown apart. I could find her online on things like Facebook and MySpace, but we aren't friends. Just the same, I keep the letters. I found a small piece of paper, folded like a card. What year it was I don't know, but it was a makeshift valentie's card from Kath "just in case" I didn't get one.

I found a couple of cards from a girl named Jo I knew at school when I was 18. There was a card she gave me when I left for uni, and I could remember feeling sad reading it at the time -- that she was clearly sad I was going away and she would miss me, and for a second no time had passed and I was still there. I found another card and a short letter she had sent me at university. I guess we eventually dropped out of contact, I've no idea where she is any more.

Going up through the layers to the years I was at university there were various letters from Fi, filled with romantic sentiments and longing. I was struck now by how young she was then. I was young myself, only 18 and in my first year at university -- envelopes addressed to my rooms in halls in Derby. There's been times since when I've been in Derby and I have stood in the street outside my old halls of residence and looked up at what had been my bedroom. I can only spot my room from the first year, but if I stood in the street at the back of the building I could also see the kitchen we shared. I could remember how together we covered almost an entire wall of the kitchen with postcards, the same walls now blank. I had letters from Fi talking about plans for New Year's Eve in 1999, and postcards sent when she was on holiday in France. Even later, there were letters sent to me in Utah. Much fewer letters than the early ones.
I know in the end I broke her heart, but at least we're still friends.

I found a single page of a letter from my Mum when I was in Utah. I couldn't find any more than the end of the letter, where she was asking me what I did with my time in the evenings and at weekends and if I saw any of the boys I had travelled out with.

It's a very strange feeling to find old birthday cards or cards of congratulations on passing my exams and going to university from now-deceased relatives or family friends. Even this year I got a birthday card that my aunt had apparently bought for me before she died, she knew she wouldn't still be here but she had selected cards to be sent just the same.

Here and there were scruffy letters from Jon sent to me at university, just short notes in his illegible writing that he'd include with compilation tapes he sent me.

After the letters in Utah there comes new contacts. Smart envelopes containing cards and written in San's neat script, correspondence between us at our universities and our homes. The smell of the paper reminding me of the musty passageway at my house in Derby, between the front door of the house and a door to the street. The way the door clattered when you slammed it shut, the smell of Rie's cigarettes.

There was a card I didn't recognise, sent to a university halls address. I had to look at the return address on the envelope to see it was from a girl named Amelia that Rie was friends with in Utah, we'd met twice or something and Rie had told her I had a crush on her. We had a very brief correspondence for a short while when I'd come back, but as these things went the gaps got longer and longer until one of us didn't reply. But this card was sent later. This was from the summer of my final year, after all of Matt and Rie's fighting and I'd had a bit of a breakdown and stayed in Derby for the summer to write my dissertation. We'd all moved out of the house, and I'd taken a room in halls for the summer. This card I don't remember ever seeing before was from Amelia, telling me to hang in there, not to give up on myself. I was touched by the sentiment, that although we barely knew each other she was clearly a little worried about me. If it wasn't for the fact the envelope was open, I'd wonder if I had ever read the card before.

Later there was a postcard from Rie of a Van Gogh print -- commenting on the back that it was a safer card this time -- since she once sent to my home a postcard of a half-naked fireman, and pretended it was from a gay lover. My parents had freaked, and I still don't think they really believe me that there really wasn't any gay lover.

That still takes us back almost 5 years now. More recently there are packages sent from Australia, large padded envelopes and neatly written letters tucked inside, sent from cities and streets I've never known. There's Christmas cards and birthday cards, postcards from all over the world -- the postcards now living in a narrow converse shoebox, cards sent by San when she was studying in the USA, Postcrossing missives from around the world, cards sent by various friends who know how I love the pictures and the dreams they offer.

Only a very small pile of letters and cards didn't make the grade. Almost everything went back into the box, still pushing at the lid. All the letters and memories to be kept for other days, and joined by more.

It's with great reluctance that I write this post. For some time now, I have avoided writing about my aunt's illness -- and her all-too-swift end. I alluded only briefly to her funeral on Friday, and I still don't think I will write anything about it. The Duffy poem will suffice in its place, I like the imagery and the phrases she uses. But just the same, I realise now that avoiding writing about these things is essentially the same as refusing to talk about them. And that's not going to do at all.

I told some of my closest friends only very brief details, in passing, of my aunt's illness. I knew that without intending any disrespect or without any malice on their parts, the details would quickly be forgotten -- and that was my intention. Only small bits of information so that I didn't have to emotionally involve myself with the subject, and so that with the bustle of our everyday lives people would forget and so nobody would ask me about it. And if nobody asked me, I wouldn't have to think about it.

It started really one idle Thursday, I think in November. The phone rang one night, and it was late enough at night so that it couldn't be good news. Nobody came to find me directly after the phone call, so although it played on my mind I knew it wasn't catastrophic news. It was when I went to say goodnight to my Dad a short while later he quietly told me that my uncle had called to say my aunt's cancer had come back. It had come back, and this time my aunt said she didn't want any treatment -- no chemotherapy, no radiotherapy, instead she just wanted her peace and dignity.

I wondered at the time and in the days since the meaning of it had "come back". I didn't recall ever being told of a cancer the first time around -- if I think hard and concentrate I can just about remember a feeling sometimes of there being a subject I hadn't been included in. How much of this is a genuine memory and how much is imagined, I don't know. I have found out since the first time was eight years ago, which would have made me 19 at the time -- perhaps about the time I was living in Utah.

My aunt's decline was rapid. She was quickly admitted to hospital, and I spoke to my uncle one night when he called to leave a message for my dad about visiting times. I told him I would like to visit, too, but he politely told me not right now. I don't remember how long she was in the hospital for, life went on the same as ever for me -- the usual routine of getting up, going to work, coming home, waking up in the morning and wondering what the fuck I'm doing with my life. All my usual concerns of work and girls and life and whatever filling my head.

One evening my Dad told me that the hospital had let my aunt go home. Like an idiot, I thought this was good news. I was pleased. I knew that there'd been tests and biopsies and foolishly I hoped that there'd been some mistake -- that everything was going to be fine and my aunt had been sent home healthy and happy. Clearly not. My Dad explained that it was a matter of that there was nothing that could be done, and she'd been sent home to be more comfortable. It was then that I really knew this would be it. That it had to be it.

I didn't get to visit my aunt at home either, I can only assume that she didn't want many visitors since she'd been so against them at he hospital. My parents visited her shortly before Christmas, and were heartbroken. A stairlift was installed at her house that day so that she might make it downstairs on Christmas Day -- but apparently my aunt had expressed her doubts. Nobody knew if she meant she wouldn't be able to make it downstairs, or if she...wouldn't be around.

December 29 I spent the day in London, and all day I thought something was wrong with my parents. I had spoken to them on the phone, they'd been in Portsmouth, but the text messages asking what time I'd be home and if I needed feeding seemed...short. I can't describe it. Text messages are always short, and I am always reading emotion into emails and text messages where there is none. But just the same, I wondered if I was in some kind of trouble for being out.

I got home late, about 11pm and my Dad was sat watching TV with the cat -- a fairly normal scene. I knew immediately something was wrong. I think I asked my Dad if he was ok, perhaps he said yes, perhaps he just said he was tired. But I persisted and he told me my aunt had died that day.

Between that day and almost the day of the funeral I'd been a little disturbed by what I felt was largely a lack of emotion in me. I didn't really feel much of anything about the whole thing, which in the end I decided was because it didn't seem real -- I hadn't visited, I hadn't seen my aunt towards the end, and only when I really told myself she was gone did I feel any sadness. One night last week I can recall waking up in the night in tears, my face hot and the tears streaming down my face, like I'd woken up from a nightmare. It seems like a dream now, so I must have fallen asleep again shortly afterwards and felt completely normal the next day -- but I knew it hadn't been a nightmare that had upset me in the night.

And I guess that's all I have to say. My aunt and uncle -- both in their 70s -- had known each other since they were 14. I can't even comprehend losing someone that was such a large part of your life like that, and I think my uncle is still struggling to comprehend it himself. I don't want to write about the funeral itself. I have nothing to say there, and will probably say nothing more about any of it here. It's going in that locked box in my head, I guess until I am ready to deal with it properly.

I hid comments on the on the poem, because I didn't want to talk about the poem -- I neither wanted to talk about poetry itself, nor really the reasons behind why I had posted it. And I won't be allowing comments here, either. I do appreciate the support given by the people here that care, just as I care in turn about the "real-life" people, but I don't want to have to face the expressions of sympathy or the hugs or to have to think about it.

The post-Christmas-post

When I arrived in Portsmouth last weekend, I was stunned. I opened my bedroom door and there were presents all over my bed, and piled in a box by the bed! I spotted my name on a gift tag, and recognised the hand writing. It didn't occur to me right away that there was no reason for such a big pile of presents all for me... and doesn't some of the wrapping paper look familiar? I'm sorry to say my heart sank as I realised quickly that not only were all the presents not for me, but in fact none of them were. I had seen my name on a gift tag because it was one I had written my bloody self, that was also why I recognised the wrapping paper. The pile of gifts were for my brother and his family.

Christmas Day itself brought a modest selection for me -- which is what I wanted. Oddly, I seem to prefer the buying and giving of gifts to the requesting, so when every year I am asked what I want, I rarely know. This might be the same reason why every year we really struggle to get anything out of my Dad as to what he wants -- but I am learning to pick up on things he wants without him realising. Anyway, this year -- like last year, and the year before that -- I asked for my car insurance paid. I could actually afford to pay it myself, since it comes down in price each year at the moment with no claims and a small car, but it's less monthly expense for me.

I actually cheated a little with opening my gifts. Dune had sent me pressies and I decided rather than put them under the tree, I would instead squirrel them away in my bedroom to open on my own when I got home from the pub on Christmas Eve -- since it would then technically be Christmas Day. Accompanying a parcel from Amazon, Dune had taken brief leave of her senses and also posted me a large box -- all the way from Australia. I had noticed some odd items described on the customs label when I got the box, but had quickly decided not to read it so as not to spoil the surprise. What I did saw seemed so obscure that I thought it was probably a ploy to throw me off. Personally, I like to write the customs labels in French -- since nothing specifies what language they have to be in, and I resent having to describe the contents. Sometimes I feel particularly silly and will write on them something like "une petit lapin" or "un bateau". I should stop giving "Angleterre" as my address to people, since I am told it is causing confusion in post offices around the world.

Anyway, under strict instructions I opened the amazon box first -- and was thrilled to find myself now the proud owner of a Zombie Surival Guide. But what on earth was in the box? I tore into the paper to find a modest box labelled "Jay's Zombie Survival Kit" -- and it does exactly what it says on the tin. The kit contains more or less everything you would need to survive -- from matches and a candle, to bandages, antiseptic cream, a torch and... chocolate biscuits. I have long wondered what a tim-tam was, and now I finally know. They look like a penguin. Their inclusion in the kit shows Dune's wilderness survival skills -- obviously the chocolate would inspire the release of feel-good endorphins into your blood stream. The book survival guide is so detailed and thorough it is frightening -- but Dune and I both belong to a Facebook group that says it all: The hardest part of the zombie apocalypse will be pretending I'm not excited. Incidentally, if anyone has ever wondered what Dune would look like as a zombie hunter, click here.

Christmas Day itself was fairly traditional -- a glass of buck's fizz before breakfast, then the opening of presents when we were all showered and dressed. I have learned from experience now not to buy DVDs for my Dad, even if they are films he says he wants -- he never remembers to watch them. I am sure he hasn't unwrapped the plastic from the ones I got him last year. This year, I bought him only one present: a set of wireless stereo headphones. He'd forgotten about it, but he'd expressed an interest in a pair a couple of months back. My Mum had considered getting him golf lessons, since he'd mentioned having lessons again. Like with most things, he never got around to actually committing to doing it -- so Mum went with my suggestion, and bought him a telescope. I have little doubt that my fascination for space comes from my Dad, and I remember at a young age sitting in the cold of the back garden with him, and looking at Mars through a telescope. He's often longed for that old child's telescope since then, so now he has something so much better. And if he doesn't want to use it, you can bet your ass that I am going to camp out in a tent in my back garden and sit out there half the night.

My brother and his family bought me vouchers for River Island, which I had asked for. I was explaining to a girl at work though, I won't use them for a while -- I want to start going to the gym again first and get back into some kind of shape (other than a round shape), so I can fully appreciate the nice clothes I will buy.

I also made good use of Etsy this year for buying handmade. Among other things, I bought my brother a keyring made by REform (which was originally going to be a birthday present for him a couple of months back), bought my sister in law some Christmas Caress bath soaps made by Beadartandbubbles and Dune received a journal handmade by Bombus -- covered with a map of Australia, to remind her of home and record her musings as she travels next year.

Most of the day was largely uneventful -- my parents went to visit some friends of theirs for a couple of hours before lunch, so I stayed home with the cat and read my book. The cat incidentally received from me a new food bowl -- although plain in appearance was quite deep, which is what counts for him. It means he can fit a lot of food in it (important to a cat) and also means he won't splash milk or cream all over the floor when he gets a bowlful as a treat.

As ever, the day itself was too short -- and I think suggestions I have seen of extending it wouldn't be all bad. I know many people (unlike me) didn't have to work Christmas Eve or Boxing Day and so had more than one day off work, but what I think is that the whole celebration should be extended. Not with more gifts, but with the gift giving being dragged out over three days, and more of a sense of a special occasion on the other two days. It seems otherwise that there is a tremendous build up, all for one day, which is over very quickly -- seems to me all the preparation and excitement would be better served by a 3-day festival of sorts.

And yes, Boxing Day I was back at work -- and let me tell you, I have never seen such an assortment of freaks than I did that day. It seems like a gate was left open somewhere and every weirdo in the world made their way into my shop...