A new world now, a world where my father no longer exists. He left on the twenty fifth of May 2011 at 11:13am in the kind care of Our Lady's Hospice. He never came home. For two days he returned to us, the kind, funny, sarcastic,caring man he had been throughout my life. For two days he tried to look after me, he laughed, he offered hospitality, he asked if the hospital bed would make it as far as home as we wheeled him into the garden. Then he was pulled beneath, shut off by a body that had given all it could but had been besieged by the dark matter eating through bone and flesh. Three days and three nights by his beside as his heart slowed down, his breathing lighter and his skin paler. His hand in mine as his eyes open wide and his breath stilled. The last words he heard were 'I love you. Don't be afraid. It will be okay'. I don't know if I believed those words, but I truly wanted him to. After my mother died I stopped writing stories. The part of me that imagined things happening was cracked and dulled, was drowned beneath the realisation that life would be more real and take more from me than anything I could imagine. Grief stole my voice then and again as I walked from a too quiet bedroom knowing my father was dead. These last months, almost two years, since my father's chest settled to silence, words have been scattered and bruised. But we are healing. We are growing stronger and we are surviving, my words and I. So I shall write my last sentences here and move on to new words, ones where loss has no place.
1. The breadcrumbs my father left in his estate have led me to embassies, sun drenched far flung city streets, forests, a balcony where he once stood, childhood black and white images of him and my mother, a palace, three passports with three different heights, far too many keys than one man should ever need, newel posts and power tools, old school reports, granite inscriptions and the knowledge that I am stronger and more capable than I ever thought.
2. My brother is turning into a wonderful independent young man and making good decisions for himself now he has the opportunity.
3. My love and I have settled in a home together and hang our prints on our walls.
4. I miss my parents every single day.
