STARS

I don’t suppose that many of us go through life without experiencing at some point or another, an event that causes us to stop in our tracks and consider. A jolt, either physical or mental, perhaps both that results in our taking stock as it were of what we are doing and where we are heading in life.

Ultimately I guess we all know where we are heading, but I know only too well how easy it is to just drift and carry on doing so without noticing that time is moving forwards regardless of whether we are ‘present’ or not.

That jolt may be to bring us back into reality and force us to recognise that our clock is ticking away and not one blind second of it can ever be re-claimed or re-lived.

For me Elaine’s death was not this type of moment, but I believe that that event threw me so completely out of balance that since it happened I’ve needed something to snap me back into realising that I was still drifting two years or more after losing her, and that I now needed to be taking hold of the oars and pulling purposefully for the shore less I drift too far out in the ‘Ocean of Grief’ and could not get back to the act of living before my time ran out too.

I’m very good at drifting. Even before Elaine died I could find it very easy to just sit and day-dream and let time pass me by. She was the opposite, always busy, mostly I think because she could never be certain how much longer she had to be busy in, and thus wanted to cram as much into life as she could.

I never have suffered that clarity about my own time. I’ve always taken it for granted that I’ll wake-up the next day (however much in the last two and a half years I didn’t want to) until that is a recent event forced me to look much more closely at the road ahead and to seriously start considering how long- or short- that road may be for me.

The photo’s that are with this post are of the hand basin in my bathroom. The damage was done by me but not intentionally.

A Sunday evening and I decide to have a hot bath. Mostly these days I shower but I do so love a hot bath and resolve to treat myself. I love to relax in the water and read, maybe write a bit or just doze and so the decision is made to do just that.

Now here I must admit something.

I have, and as far as I know always have had a rather low heart rate. I found out by chance through hospital visits that my ‘normal’ beats per minute is around 50-51 about 10 below the lower end of the scale for an adult my age (60-100). Everyday it doesn’t cause any problem but I have noticed throughout my life that getting up suddenly can make me a bit woozy and light-headed especially if I’m hot.

 Also I’ve eaten very little today and drunk even less.

So I’m in the bath and the water’s about as hot as I can bear it to start with and I enjoy a nice soak, read a bit then doze. I’m aware of my heart speeding up then slowing again on several occasions, which seems to me about normal, then later still I glance up at the clock. Nearly 7pm, and remembering my evening meal needs to be in the oven, I stand up quickly and step out of the tub.

Big Mistake! I’m engulfed in a wave of awful nausea and my head is full of bricks. It makes me stagger, and fumbling for a towel I wrap it around me but it’s just instinct, I cannot think. Lurching over to the chair in the corner I sit but can’t comprehend what is happening to me and I feel utterly vile.

Then suddenly pain on my shoulder arm and face, I’ve fallen sideways to the floor making contact with the laundry box en-route.

 Managing to stagger upright I’m still unable to grasp just what’s happening to me. Through the Fug the words heart attack come to mind and panic begins to set in. Feeling I must lie down I stupidly grasp the door intending to step out onto the landing to get to the bedroom.

There is a strangely comforting sense of falling, a muffled cacophony of noises and a ‘thick’ sensation at the back of my head. Then nothing.

For just a few seconds-nothing. Then there’s a handful of tiny stars in the night sky and suddenly I’m wide awake. I feel fine, heads clear as a bell well almost but something is wrong, I’m on the floor with what appear to be chunks of broken china around me.

Staring at the busted basin I can’t quite take in what has happened so I kneel up and splash my face with cold water then stand, re-wrap myself in the towel and head downstairs. Physically I feel okay except there’s a dull ache at the base of my skull, and my face left shoulder and elbow hurt.

Downstairs I sort the meal and pop it in the Rayburn; the cats have detected movement in the larder and appear in search of food as if conjured from the walls around me. I sort them then pour myself a cold beer and take a look at my bruised face in the mirror.

I can’t help but say aloud “Did that really happen?”

So I go back up to the bathroom and survey the wreckage. No need to describe it the pictures do that better than I can.

At first I’m just pissed at the damage. Thinking it through I realise why I blacked out (first time ever)  then I start feeling angry with myself for being such a jerk, but sitting on the edge of the bath other thoughts come to bear.

The back of my head obviously smashed the basin but I missed the cold tap by scant inches; one of the iron support brackets too. If I’d fallen to my right there’s the radiator to greet me, forwards and the edge of the steel bath would have done the job.

Worse still (maybe!) if I had managed to step through the door onto the landing there’s a good probability I would have pitched head first down the staircase.

No one would have found me in a hurry, injury disablement or even possibly death may have been the result, and what a bloody stupid way to go, can you imagine Elaine’s face and words of greeting.

“You Twat Ted, you know not to get out the hot bath too quickly you’ve gone and wasted it all now, and there were things you needed to do and be.”

“Oh fuck it, I didn’t think, haven’t always been able to since you died.”

“Don’t blame me that wasn’t my choice, I told you as much.”

Indeed she did and here I have to diverse a little….

*****

My sister Sue died of cancer in early 2005; a few weeks after her death I met her in a dream.

I say a dream and yet it wasn’t. I was perfectly wide awake within it and aware that my body was sleeping. Unlike a mere dream my recall of it is perfectly clear. If any of you reading have had similar experience’s you will understand immediately what I mean.

I was stood on a busy pavement, people were all around but no one seemed to notice me then Sue walked up and stopped just over an arms distance away.

She was wearing a long skirt and blouse in predominately purple shades and patterns, her hair was dark as it had been when she was younger but she looked very sad. I spoke first.

“I wish you hadn’t had to go.”

“So do I”, was the total of her reply and she turned and walked back the way she had come and I knew that I could not follow.

A few weeks after Elaine died I had a similar experience.

I was stood this time in a room. All around me was in shadow so I cannot describe it to you but Elaine came walking up towards me and, as Sue did, stopped just more than an arms’ length from me.

She seemed to be wearing jeans and a light coloured shirt, her hair was as it had been when we first met in chestnut ringlets framing her face; she was younger than at the end of her life.

It was unsaid between us, but I was aware we could not touch.

Again I spoke first “Why did you have to go?”

“It was time.”

Just three unemotional words and I knew the conversation was done, then I awoke.

So why not me? As I’m sat in the bathroom contemplating what has occurred I can’t help thinking “Why the hell didn’t I just die this night,” victim of a simple domestic accident.

Recently I had coffee with friends Sue and John, they are both lifelong Christians.

I was telling them what I’ve related here and repeating that I could not grasp why Elaine had run out of time yet it was still afforded to me.

Sue put down her cup and stared thoughtfully at it for a few moments before looking up directly at me.

“There is a reason Mark, a reason you’re still here I mean. You may never know or understand what it is but if you follow you’re intuition you may well recognise it when it comes your way.”

“But what if it’s a punishment, to be living here without her?”

“Is that what your instinct tells you?

“To be honest no, I don’t really feel that at all.”

“Then don’t try and force what isn’t there to be your reality; that she’s dead is not your fault that you still have time is not your doing either, at some point you have to accept it and step forward. Elaine’s time has ended yours’ is still running, don’t let it run out thinking too hard about it.”

Carefully I collect up the pieces of basin and put them aside. I’m going to repair the bastard if I can but for now it’s into my clothes and back downstairs for food and another drink.

                                                                    *****

Despite the evidence upstairs as I sit and eat and feign watching TV, doubt begins to creep over me.

“Just an unfortunate incident, no hidden agenda here sort it and move on.”

Then just as loudly doubt swings the other way.

“You’re bloody lucky not to be lying dead, broken or crippled. There’s meaning here. Listen!”

Later that night I’m recounting the incident to Marilyn on the phone. She’s very concerned and starts mentioning hospital and A&E ETC. I say I feel fine, which I do, “Just a small dull ache at the base of my sku….”

Oh! My hand has strayed upward as we speak, the back of my skull where it meets the spine is wet-Blood!

Saying nothing to Marilyn I feel around in my hair. There is something there alien to me, small sharp hard and as I pull it out very pointed, a sliver of the basin is between my fingers. The bleeding stops shortly after its removal under pressure from some wet kitchen towels.

Later that night I’m sat again in the bathroom, this time in semi darkness; it helps me to think.

I’ve become accustomed to treating my time with a certain contempt as if it were an infinite commodity but this smack to the head has suggested to me that I start looking at things in a different light.

The piece of porcelain embedded in me has had the most profound effect of all. What if it had pierced the top of my spine or the base of the skull?

Had I died as a result of this incident then that would have been it- you’re out of time matey, game over! A couple of years or so ago I wouldn’t have cared too much, I didn’t want to carry-on without Elaine beside me, couldn’t see any fucking point.

But now there are points; little points of light have broken through the darkness that’s been holding me like so many tiny stars, and they continue to do so. They flicker gently and they’re getting brighter. Sometimes they are like little whispers- life, unexplored chances, opportunities…hope! Other things too, change and new ways of living.

The past cannot be altered by my trying to hold on to it. But I can if willing, use it as a foundation to build a present and possibly a future. That foundation will never vary but will remain ever present throughout the rest of my time however long or short that may be.

“We’re all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars” was a favourite quote of Elaine’s by Oscar Wilde; and if she could speak now?

“Stand on my shoulders Mark and reach for those stars. Better those than the darkness- cast it off, let it go its time is done; don’t waste your time to it any longer.”

The nemesis of my neglect could be my running out of time whilst I’m sat thinking about it. The grief I’ve lived with since losing my darling has tried on so many occasions to overwhelm me and cloud my judgement but has never quite succeeded- otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this.

Always something or someone has been there to pull me from the rabbit- hole (Elaine’s phrase).

We’ve settled into a sort of stalemate now and though I am accepting that there will be no actual end to the grief for me there really must be an end to the grieving.

Perhaps best to find out what those stars are whispering about and the only way to do that is to reach up to them and to keep reaching.

In amongst those whispers there’s one other thing I haven’t mentioned before, but did hint at in an earlier blog.

I had not reckoned on this or seen it coming or even expected it, nor would I ever have believed it could find me out again in any form… love!