Grief

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

These are the supposed "5 stages of grief"

Talk to almost anyone who watches television and they'll recognise some form of this from a show they watch, for me it's the episode of Scrubs, My Five Stages, in it J.D. and Dr. Cox go through the five stages of grief with their favourite patient, Mrs. Wilk, who is declining in health.

Let me tell you something about the 5 stages of grief,

It is 

B
O
L
L
O
C
K
S

Now I'm not saying it won't be that way for some people but it is portrayed as the way grief should be dealt with and I believe that can be very damaging as we all process death and loss much in the same way as we process everything, differently

I for one have never dealt with denial or bargaining, I can't deny Elizabeth died, it happened, I was there and who can I bargain with? God? HA! I gave up believing in fairy tales long ago

Anger and Depression though, they my two new best friends. I hate them both but like a bad smell they are determined to linger and they don't take turns or go away afterwards. I have been angry multiple times in the last five months, sometimes at people, sometimes at myself, lots of times at completely random objects. The tin opener broke on me a few weeks ago whilst I was halfway through opening a tin and boy did I have a good ten minutes where I hulk smashed that useless thing until it was in multiple pieces and my hand was sore

Acceptance... I don't think I'll ever get there, how am I supposed to accept this? I'll never get to hold her hand again or smell her hair as she snuggles close to me in bed, I'll never get to see the look of pride on her face as Guenhwyvar does something new. I even miss the way she would get so annoyed at the smallest things and I just don't think I'll ever accept that she's not here to do those things or any of the other many things that made me love her so much.

We don't talk about death enough, we're all so terrified by our own mortality that we shut it out. We may not have to deal with our own death but those we leave behind do, I'm not suggesting long depressing conversations about funerals and the meaning of life but we all go at sometime and burying our heads in the sand hasn't worked so far so maybe it's time to change the way we think about it all.

Hi Angel Face

I stood at the sink this afternoon doing some washing up and I started crying, hard. It was the hardest I've cried in a few months. There was no reason, no song that reminded me of you, nothing remotely sad to set me off but I bawled my eyes out like my wife had just died, oh wait...

Seriously though, as I said last time I haven't had enough time to myself to process this and right now I just want to wallow a little and be sad, you were everything I ever wished for and I'm really feeling your absence right now. Three years ago we were in Tenerife, we'd just found out you were pregnant and our life was pretty damn good and today I spent my fourth straight day without leaving the house, I think The Squidge is getting cabin fever!

I do my best to avoid interacting with people, you know me, I hate everyone and everything seems stupid to me but you didn't get annoyed with me or force me to go to places/things I didn't want to. If I did go to something with you 95% of the time it was just because I wanted to spend the time with you and you luckily had a handful of friends who I actually liked, who have all contacted me at various stages and I have been terrible at replying to them, got some apologies to make to them.

Love you Angel Face 😘😍

This came on in the delivery suite when Elizabeth was in labour with Guenhwyvar

and we both instantly loved it!

A tremendous cover of a fantastically written song

Broken

Hi Angel Face,

I've sat down a bunch of times in the past week to write something but every time I have walked away from the keyboard having either typed a few words or nothing at all. I've never been the greatest person at articulating my thoughts and feelings, it was one of the most underrated things about you, you had a knack of knowing what I meant even through my incoherent ramblings! But being unable to get anything out but not knowing why was really having a negative affect on me but laying in bed last night I realised what was stopping me,

Quite simply, I'm broken and I really don't know how to not be

For the past five months I've put on the brave face and dealt with the avalanche of shit that has descended on me since your death, I filled the forms in, made the phone calls, waited for responses/decisions, chased responses/decisions and I've done all this whilst trying to be a parent, something that, no matter what everyone tries to tell me, I've been failing miserably at. I have done nothing fun or exciting with The Boy when he comes here, I've been content to just let him spend the overwhelming majority of the time in his room on his Xbox because it's easier for me.

The Squidge doesn't know what has happened, seriously if you walked through the door this afternoon her reaction would be exactly the same as it was before, she'd shout "MUMMY" then run and fling herself at you. I made a really conscious effort in the early weeks to keep everything as normal as possible for her and I think I did an alright job at it but as time has gone on I feel like I'm just doing the basics and honestly sometimes barely managing that. She's fed and has clean clothes, well for about five minutes until she finds some way to get herself dirty, but I don't interact enough with her, I'm short tempered with her and let stupid little things she does irritate me way more than I should, she's two for goodness sake, doing stupid things is a toddlers job! She's having a nap right now but I've cleared the floor in the lounge and after she has some lunch I'm going to get the paints out and we're going to get messy. It's a small step but I know she'll enjoy herself

What I've not done in the past five months is take any meaningful time for myself, sure I've had days where The Squidge stayed out and I've done things either on my own or with others but they are barely sticky plasters over a gaping wound, I feel normal for a short while but the the darkness descends on me again and the despair of living without you gnaws away at me. I never feel guilty for trying to enjoy myself but not being able to talk to you about it afterwards crushes any enjoyment I felt.

The best way I can emphasise how I'm affected by everything is by explaining that in the past 10 days I've watched Rangers reach a cup final and beat a team who were Champions League quarter finalists last year and telling you that I barely reacted to either win, you commented a few times that you envied the passion I had for Rangers but it just seems so "meh" now. It's all meaningless without you, hell I even take it back when I said I'd choose bacon over you!

I need some time away, preferably in a remote location with no distractions where I can find an empty field and scream or a room where I can curl up in the fetal position and lose myself in the blackness for a while but I've been saying this for months now and there's constantly a handful of things at all times that's stopping me being able to do it. Obviously there's The Squidge, I can't just leave her own her own with a weeks worth of cheese, the stupid little admin stuff that still hasn't been sorted because other people, people who would say that they loved you and only want the best, are holding up for reasons that may sound reasonable to them but when held up against any normal person logic are quite frankly shoddy at best, reasons that where you here to listen to would make you livid. Livid but not surprised (Yeah, I know you are reading this, though it seems a tad hypocritical seeing as you wouldn't answer my calls and have blocked me from contacting you...)

I'm broken and some of the pieces have been lost forever, I'll never be "fixed" I do wish I had the chance to sort through the pieces

Love you Angel Face 😘😍
(I know I incoherently rambled but you'd get it, and fix it)

Oh, by the way I've decided that I'd have dropped enough hints about the Lego® 1989 Batmobile that you would have bought it for me so I'm gonna do that... Thank you 😁

In honour of MCR reuniting and me clearly not being okay...

Hell if you can't watch this video and listen to the lyrics and relate then you are obviously a lizard person

Life, as they say, comes at you fast

A year ago this week I started the training for my current job, 50 days after leaving my previous job to be a stay at home parent, I mused on Facebook that "Life, as they say, comes at you fast" The last year has proved that in spades!

Hi Angel Face

It's been a strange week in some ways, I've been busy every day whilst slowly feeling more and more run down. I partially put this down to the cold that has crept up on me but I can't help but feel the pressure I've been putting on myself is the biggest contributory factor.

It's quite ironic really, I spent so much time telling you to relax and not worry so much about everything and here I am doing the exact same thing. I see now all the things that you did that I never even realised and how much extra strain it has caused. I know it wouldn't have changed the outcome but I wish I'd done more, wish I'd not been selfish and just let you get on with it, had I done even just 10% more then maybe we'd have had more time to do things together, time to make more memories. I don't know, will never know, if I'm right or just punishing myself, I know the therapist would tell me that I need to be kinder to myself. Oh and let's face it you have to take a portion of the blame as whenever I did ask to help you'd brush me off so we were probably as bad as each other!

The Squidge had her 2 year check, she aced it, no surprises there. She's a clever little girl (too clever sometimes...😐) I see so much of you in her. I got the button rug out and gave it a good clean and she bloody loved it! I have a video of me saying colours and her running to one that matched, if you'd been here for me to send it to you I know you'd have been so proud you'd have shed a wee tear or two. It felt really good to have gotten the rug sorted and I was once again hard on myself for not doing it sooner but then the Squidge got up in the night and vomited on it! I didn't know whether to cry or laugh! Someone said maybe she just doesn't like it, they may have a point her whole life she's vommed on it time and time again! 😂

Had some good news on Friday which I'll share when the time is right

I miss you

Love you Angel Face 😘😍😍


'Cuz I won't waste another day,
Living someone else's way.
I wanna be happy,
I wanna be free,
Fuck what they say,
I'm doing me.

Words to live by, and how I've tried to live for the past 6/7 years
I discovered this song via an advert early last year, it spoke to me in a way a song hadn't in a while...

Little things, tough decisions and internet rage

Hey Angel Face,

You being gone sucks more than I can ever express, one of the best explanations I saw likened it to losing a limb, you're used to it always being there and then all of a sudden it's gone but no matter how long it's gone you still feel as if it is there sometimes.

As I said last time, days can be so normal, the big stuff generally takes care of itself and the Squidge is the same old wrecking machine with added "Terrible Two's" attitude (She totally gets her stubborn streak from you, thanks for that!) It's the little things that make me stop or cause the twinge in my chest, like when the Squidge see's a photo of you and shouts "mummy!" or says "mummy's pretty" boy am I not looking forward to that conversation when she's able to understand...

Tough decisions, every day it seems like there's a new one, difficult conversations, life changing decisions and of course Squidge decisions. Had to have a difficult conversation which I wasn't expecting to go well but it actually went much worse than I expected when this person did something I would never have expected, they lied about you, directly to my face. I can tolerate many things but even now, days later I find the rage bubbles up even just thinking about it, for anyone to do that is crazy to me but the person that actually did it? It's nothing short of a betrayal and had you any idea you would have been utterly livid, especially as I, and the people who matter agree, said nothing that wasn't true or that you would have been mad or uncomfortable with. Where it goes from here is in their hands... There are a few life changing decisions, the biggest being is where the Squidge and I are going to live, I feel like that's going to take up a great deal of my time going forward. Squidge decisions are some of the hardest, it always seemed like you had all the answers when it came to her, I know you'd totally tell me that you didn't know what you were doing but I'd tell you that's bollocks, and I'm trying to guess what or how you would do things

So Internet rage... there's a popular website that has a place for grief support and I may have got slightly ragey at someone who decided to mention karma... Where was your karma? You don't deserve to not be here with the people who loved you most, you don't deserve not to see your daughter grow up. She doesn't deserve to grow up without you, what did she do to deserve ME as her only parent?! Poor little Squidge!

I miss you Elizabeth, those who loved you miss you. We'll never forget you

Love you Angel Face 😘😍



(Song choice, last song I listened to
before Elizabeth picked me up before our first date)

Where did four months go?

Earlier this year a friend of me and my wife (Elizabeth) told us that one of her closest friends husband had died following a sudden and short illness, he was only 56 and left a wife and two children just about to start high school behind. I remember Elizabeth and me talking about how we couldn't imagine how they must be feeling or what we would do if it ever happened to one of us. It personally made me remember the sheer anguish I felt when our daughter was born, Elizabeth, after what had already been a fairly difficult pregnancy had to have an emergency cesarean and sitting on my own whilst they prepped the surgery room was just horrid. It was probably only five minutes but it felt like a lifetime. Then as I was sat by her head during the section her blood pressure on the monitor dropped and she seemed to be losing consciousness, in a complete panic I had to ask one of the nurses if she was going to be okay. Afterwards whilst she was being stitched up I was sat looking at our daughter and wondering how the hell we would cope without her mummy. That feeling of dread at losing her I had during the section was the single worst moment of my life.

Or it was until 7:00 pm on the 11th of June, when the lead doctor had to make the decision to stop the attempt to resuscitate Elizabeth. In the space of a few hours between receiving the phone call that she had been taken to hospital and that moment my whole life had come crashing down around me and the woman I loved, my wife, my best friend, the mother of my daughter was just gone. At first there was just a numbness, this couldn't be real, I'd been with her until I left for work at around 3:30 pm and she'd been fine, baking cakes and then planing to go out for a jog in the evening. Then came the pain, I have tried to describe that feeling multiple times but nothing I can come up with comes even a little close. I can say that even now, four months later, that pain is still there - slightly less - but nonetheless it's still there. I feel it every day and expect, to some extent, I always will

So much has happened in the last four months and living without Elizabeth is a hundred times worse than I could have ever imagined but the world doesn't stop and I've got a wonderful little girl who needs me more than ever.

Until now I have always counted myself as lucky to have never really had any issues with my mental health. I've always been fairly confident guy, never been too worried what people thought of me, hell I'm a 33 year old man with, what Elizabeth called an "obscene" collection of Pokémon cards! Since Elizabeth's death though it's been like the worlds worst roller-coaster has been erected in my brain. Some days are mostly normal, we go to group and things are almost the same as before but most days start with me waking up from another restless nights sleep with no desire to do anything or face the world. It takes more effort than I can explain to drag myself out of bed and deal with the day ahead. Depression is a hell of a mind fuck and I have an explanation as to why I'm experiencing it, I can't imagine how people who suffer with it but don't have an outlying cause feel

I don't have a real purpose for writing here but the therapist I've seen has encouraged me to try and find an outlet for my thoughts and feelings and I also plan on taking a step back from social media so this will be a way for me to keep in touch with those who would like to. I'm not going to set a schedule for posts as I'm completely rubbish when it comes to doing that so when I feel like I need to vent or have something to share it'll be on here from now on.

If you've stuck with my ramblings this long I can only ask, why?! Don't you have anything better to do you weirdo?! Seriously though thank you for reading and any feedback is welcome

JK

Love you Angel Face 😘😍

(I plan on adding a song that encapsulates my current mood in or at the end of every blog post so I'm going to start with a song that Elizabeth and I loved and was played at our wedding ceremony, enjoy)