Love and thunder
You die at 4.30am on a Wednesday.
.
I sit with your body for a time.
.
Presumably, dawn breaks.
.
I make some calls.
To your sister.
Your mum.
Your dad.
.
At 6.30am I leave your hospice room and drive home to our children.
.
Two years ago
we told them you had cancer and that you might die.
.
A month ago
we told them the cancer had got worse and you would definitely die.
.
This morning
I tell them you have died in the night.
.
That I was with you.
That it happened peacefully.
.
It is the first thing they hear when they wake up.
.
They are quiet.
Sad.
But not surprised.
.
It’s the last day of term.
They want to go to school.
.
After I’ve dropped them off I return to the hospice to clear your room.
.
I loved it there.
I don’t want to move out.
.
But everything is returned to our house to sort through later.
.
And by this evening
Room 16 will be someone else’s.
.
The kids finish school.
They go to gymnastics.
Have haircuts.
Play futsal.
.
That evening I let them have pizza
on the sofa
with a movie.
I’m marking your passing by filling our children with processed food.
It is absolutely not what you would have wanted.
You frown at me.
But you don’t mind really.
.
After much deliberation
we choose to watch
Thor Love and Thunder.
You can imagine how long that took.
.
It is a film
I recall as soon as it begins
about a woman with stage 4 cancer
who fights her disease
by becoming a kick ass warrior
and dies in the process.
.
Hmmm.
.
But it’s okay.
.
We talk again about the four stages.
Why the odds were stacked against you.
What we admire about the way you faced it.
How unfair cancer is.
.
You squeeze my hand.
.
The next day
I try with all my might to resist the temptation to be a human doing -
instead: a human being.
.
So we wake up
gather in our bed
look at photos of you
and together
we cry.
.
Later
we walk the dog.
.
There are playdates
and screen time
and Easter eggs.
.
Is it real?
I love her so much.
She was so beautiful.
I can’t believe she’s dead.
.
They say these things sporadically throughout the day.
.
And I say
Yes it’s real.
I love her too.
Yes she was.
Me neither.
.
Me neither.
.
Because you’re in Toronto with Edward Scissorhands.
Or in tech at the Lyric.
At opening night of Sinatra in town.
Out for dinner with a donor.
Seeing a friend for a drink.
At yoga.
.
The idea that I will never see you again is utterly absurd.
.
A friend messages:
Did you know yesterday was World Theatre Day?
I didn’t.
You would have done.
.
And I tried
but I can’t resist
just a little bit of tidying.
.
Applying some order to the chaos.
Controlling the things we can.
.
We have a go at the bathroom
and our bedroom.
.
I can now finally hang all my clothes up in our wardrobe.
Silver linings.
You roll your eyes.
.
I go to the registrars office to register your death.
He tells me to proof read it carefully
because errors can’t be corrected afterwards.
You tell me I’ve missed an apostrophe.
.
My phone alerts me constantly.
Message after message
sending support
and sharing in the heart-break.
.
A wave of admiration for you
good wishes
and help
for me.
Accept it you say.
.
And I am grateful
to be held in this way
by so many people.
.
But I have to say
baby
the loneliness
is crushing.
.
I lie in our bed that night.
The night of the day in the morning of which you died.
.
I roll onto my side.
Away from your half of the bed.
I urge a storm to begin outside the window.
Summoning thunder, my love.
.
But it is still.
And oh so quiet.
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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.
I'm so grateful that you're still writing. Grateful for the window into your world. You have rarely left my thoughts.
You are all still very much in our thoughts. x