Brave new world
We are swallowed whole by the holidays.
And it is good.
.
Engulfed by friends.
Buffered by family.
.
For the kids
each day a novelty.
.
A fresh face.
Another hug.
A new rule broken.
.
TV in the morning.
Thick layers of peanut butter and jam.
The dog on the sofa.
Naps in our bed.
Consecutive junk food dinners.
Extra video games.
TV late into the night.
A never ending convoy of chocolate eggs.
.
I ask myself daily
where does permissive comforting end
and bad parenting begin?
.
But there is also football.
And gymnastics.
And walks.
And sleepovers.
And shopping.
And waterparks.
And a night in a hotel.
.
Distraction?
Maybe.
But we talk of you every day.
In one way
or another.
.
I do all in my power to be with them
present to their needs.
.
But the pull of admin is strong.
.
Your funeral wishes demand execution.
Transport.
Flowers.
Music.
Readings.
Guests.
Invitations.
Venues.
Food.
Drink.
.
Mundane tasks must be completed.
Subscriptions amended.
Cars rehoused.
Insurances renewed.
.
On each form it asks marital status.
Married.
No
widowed.
.
The money I saved for your birthday
and our wedding anniversary
and Mother’s Day
withdrawn.
.
Accounts closed.
Names changed.
Deliveries cancelled.
.
Finances reforecasted.
Expenses cut.
Investments disinvested.
.
I start to panic.
I need to go back to work.
Soon.
.
I check our overdraft limit.
.
What was your coffee subscription password?
Why won’t Argos close your account without a copy of the death certificate?
What will I do with a year’s supply of bath salts?
.
The soft-top I bought you shortly after your diagnosis so you could drive to the sea with the wind in your hair the one that everyone knew was really my mid-life crisis car masquerading as a present to you well it started falling apart about two months ago and so I spent thousands keeping it going determined it wouldn’t be a metaphor.
.
There’s part of me that is just waiting for someone to run over the cat.
.
Look at me.
Last month I was writing about the love of my life dying in my arms.
Today I’m talking about car repair.
Jesus.
.
I throw away your flowers.
Bunch after bunch of dried blooms.
.
And I throw away your flours.
Wholemeal, Spelt, Rice, Corn.
.
The more I close
and amend
and rework
and decide
and discard
the more I am pulled into the future
away from this precious present that is still suffused with you
and towards a world without.
.
This morning I sort through our book shelves.
Our lives narrated in librarian form.
.
Your tomes on the history of cinema
and photography techniques.
.
My playscripts
and self-help manuals.
.
Your Palahniuk series.
My Murakami collection.
.
The notebooks you filled with ideas and lists and meeting minutes.
The novels I bought from The Stand in New York the day we got engaged.
.
A whole shelf of newly acquired and barely read stories and guides and cook books and miracle cures
for cancer.
.
I happen across a copy of Brave New World.
I don’t remember if it is yours or mine.
Presumably one of us read it at uni.
It looks second hand.
.
I flick through.
There are pages missing.
Whole chapters in fact.
.
Except they’re not missing.
They’ve been viciously ripped from the spine.
.
The remaining sheets hang by threads.
Threatening to pull loose from the binding at any moment.
Previous > On Coping #30: Love and thunder | Next > On Coping #32: Darling it’s me
On Coping is my story of surviving on the sidelines of cancer. It begins in 2022 with On Coping #1, written the day after my 41st birthday. The day my wife Imogen, the mother of my three children, was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. It’s the story of what happened next. Read from the start.