‘Merry Christmas, Nanny!’ Dan flung open the back door and strode into the kitchen, stamping his feet on the mat to shake off the snow from his black Converse hi-tops. ‘Ooh, you silly sod you nearly made me drop the spuds.’ My mum, in her festive red dress and white cardy, tipped a pan ofContinue reading “The Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present, and Future.”
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Everything reminds me of you
In the newly decorated and reorganised home office, I hear a beep beep from one of the boxes. ‘Oh my god Dan, your watch is still beeping for some random alarm you set.’ And, in a blink, you are next to me, laughing too. ‘Hur-hur-hur, Can’t believe it, it’s how old? I think I gotContinue reading “Everything reminds me of you”
No More Nails
There are handmade boxes of drill bits; masonry, wood, metal. Small cardboard boxes of screws in varying lengths. Large toolboxes with pliers and spanners and hammers. The garage is a trove for the D-I-Y hobbyist. It’s now my job to sort it out and find new homes for all these items. Dad was always buildingContinue reading “No More Nails”
Bubblegum and Tattoos
They have bags of ‘tennis ball’ bubble gum at the Go Local shop just along from where my dad lives. They look like the little knobbly bubblies from an old bubbly machine. I loved those. 2p (or 5p. 70s Inflation hit us kids hard in our pocket money stakes) and you got this rock hardContinue reading “Bubblegum and Tattoos”
I Definitely Don’t Believe in God
I definitely don’t believe in God. Not the ‘earth created in seven days, Adam and Eve’ stuff that some people seem to be able to swallow whole, as fact. I don’t believe a singular being or even a group of deities made this planet and everything on it. I’m firmly on the side of scienceContinue reading “I Definitely Don’t Believe in God”
A Photograph of You
For the last three years I’ve been trying to get a photo of the right quality of Dan for the NHS Blood and Transplant Service to use on a memory board at Sheffield Children’s Hospital, in honour of Dan’s amazing gift of life through organ donation. The memory boards are large picture boards typically depictingContinue reading “A Photograph of You”
Dreaming of you
The last couple of nights I’ve dreamed about Dan. They have not been pleasant dreams. In one, he was dead but had returned to life and then been murdered by a family friend and I found myself kneeling beside a shallow grave digging with bare hands through crumbly black earth, reaching a faded and tornContinue reading “Dreaming of you”
Be. Arsed.
New Year, new attitude. Last year was weird, for all of us, I know. Personally, I felt like I was burrowing further and further down into myself and drifting further and further from everyone I know. As if I’d wrapped my grief and sadness around me and then, cocooned, been caught on the breeze, andContinue reading “Be. Arsed.”
Muppets always make it better
It’s Christmas Eve. Which means I shall be watching The Muppets Christmas Carol. Reasons, two. One: It’s the best Christmas film ever. Two: Because it’s the best Christmas film ever, Dan and I watched it most Decembers, usually on Christmas Eve. Who can fail to be moved by Gonzo as Charles Dickens, ably assisted byContinue reading “Muppets always make it better”
Christmas is Coming
The only reason that Christmas, and for that matter, birthdays, are so loaded with emotion and so difficult to manage is because they don’t happen every day. If we lived with a year of Christmas days, the power would soon dissipate, and it’d become so ordinary that we wouldn’t cry every time we saw THATContinue reading “Christmas is Coming”
Middowed 