Crying
I just can’t stop crying, so I went to pick up my daughter from Gatwick, she’d been backpacking since May 2022, six month’s, from a yoga retreat in Bali to a sailing deckhand in Australia, I really feel like I have had an adventure with her, they say you can live your life through your kids but yeah you actually can and it’s true. You see back in 2021 I had a phone call from my son “you need to call Diane now” Diane is my x wife, I called her, “G has been rushed to hospital they think she needs brain surgery”
Yeah you maybe just felt a little of that whole body freeze that is part heavy tingle with a touch of complete numbness and cold sweat where you're heart slingshots to mars and back, after the dizziness had subsided a bit I managed to steady myself. “I’ll call you back in a bit” she said. Whoa! fuck I remember holding on to myself and feeling like I was travelling backwards and forwards whilst standing still. Time stopped, I stopped, the earth, stopped. Diane called me back, “yep they need to operate”, “now”, they are transferring her to Nottingham, I happened to be living in Nottingham in a flatshare on Radford Boulevard, I had left wife number 3 after she had been arrested for attacking me, but anyway. “ok” I said to Diane tell her I’ll meet her at the hospital, I left University and went directly to the hospital. I stood near A and E and waited for the ambulance.
Covid, yep fucking covid. The doctor said “your daughter is a little upset and we are going to have a meeting to discuss how to proceed”, “is G in the meeting with you?” “yes sir” “can I come in to the meeting” “no sir”, “hang on a minute, you’re having a meeting with my 23 year old daughter about life threatening brain surgery and you are telling me I can not attend because of covid restriction” “that’s correct sir”. I think he saw it in my eyes, I didn’t ask him but he must be a father, I think he felt that presence in me. The one that say’s if you think that is possibly going to happen then just test it out. I said, “I am coming to that meeting to be with my daughter” “and you or nobody else is going to stop me”. It seemed a while, no a bit more than a while, he looked deep in to my eyes, it was a face off he wasn’t going to win. OK he said, come with me. She was so pleased to see me.
Diane drove to Nottingham from Lincolnshire, about an hour or so. By this time G was in surgery, “they reckon around 6 hours to remove the tumour” I said, it was decent weather, “let’s walk around Woollaton park while we wait” neither of us wanted to be in the hospital and we had arranged with the nurse that she would call us as soon as she was out of surgery. It’s really difficult to describe the intensity of the nervousness, it was like a sort of shaky vertigo with moments of a sort of wakening unconsciousness, whilst walking through a park with the birds singing. I was with Diane, strangely it felt comfortable and nice to be with her, just walking and talking but both of us having the same terrible experience together. How is it possible have a lovely romantic dream and a nightmare at the same time.
About 4 hours passed and we walked past a pub, “lets have a beer” I said, it seemed the complete wrong thing to do but somehow was ok. I sat in the outside area waiting with my beer for Diane to come back from the toilet. I don’t know what everyone else thought but Diane ran through the crowd, “she’s OK” she said, we hugged, That was the phone call. The one that we had been waiting for. They let us see her briefly. We went back the next day. The operation was successful. G said “They drilled a hole in my head dad”. “I know” I said, and gave her a big hug.
It was one of those lapses in the authoritarianism of our government that meant that if you were in a “bubble” you could meet up with family members, “bubble” for fucks sake. It was November and G’s birthday, she went to my son’s house and it was that one photograph that did it. G on the settee with my son’s Jamie and Charlie, one either side of her. I stared at that photo for ages, we have a group chat on WhatsApp, we call it Famchat. I was living in Nottingham next to a crack house, I had finished University but still doing some part time care work to pay for the rent. Why am I here and not there I asked myself. It was during the birthday call with G when she said you need to move to Sleaford dad. We do tend to have moments of same ideas. “I know” I said.
A children’s home they called it, but really it was a prison for young offenders. But that was it, my new job, in Sleaford where my Son lives and my two lovely grandchildren. G lives in the next village 10 mins away at her Mums and Charlie was in Lincoln then. Charlie, oh Charlie, that really is another story. So I’m in my new flat, over 50’s behind the old folks home, decent wage, near my family, still cycling, mountain climbing, taking photographs,
It happened……The attack…..it happened at work
G got a job in events management, that’s what she studied at uni you see, she managed to get a first with honours, even with taking time out for flippin brain surgery. It’s so nice when she calls in to see me, “Hello Dad” how you doing? Lovely. But then her tears would come after a while talking. She got some meds from the doc but still couldn’t manage to hold down the job, she would have nights of no sleep at all. Her therapist thinks it may be some sort of PTSD from the brain surgery, she’s joined the support group but nothing seems to be helping her.
I’m going to Bali on a yoga retreat she said, I’m selling my car and going travelling, Ok G if that’s what you gotta do then that’s what you gotta do, what about Luna. Luna is a cockapoo, a lovely well tempered although a bit excited female doggy that we got for G as a sort of therapy dog. I’m not allowed pets in my flat? It’s ok Mum will look after her and Granny (Diane’s mum) she’s nice, although a bit loud especially after a couple of whisky’s, she’s Scottish you see, very Scottish. And maybe you could doggy sit a bit. Luna likes visiting here cos I play with her and hide treats for her. She’s a great little doggy.
So since May this year 2022 we’ve had a steady stream of photo’s on Bali chat WhatsApp thingy and some phone calls and facetime etc from Bali and Australia, following G’s exciting adventure. So back to where I started I suppose, crying, why was I crying. Diane split with her boyfriend about a year ago, she’s had a few. I was sort of pleased, well when she has a boyfriend I sort of lay low and give her the space she needs and deserves but when we want a conversation about the kids or grandkids then it’s not so, erm free flowing, easy, I’m not sure how to explain it but there seems to be a barrier. So when she is single I suppose she is more free to be involved in family stuff, but not a family, I know it’s so damn confusing.
Anyway, she offered/asked if I wanted to travel down to Gatwick with her to pick up G, a moment of sheer excitement hit me and I felt so good. Shit I said I have a stage three absence meeting at work I can’t come. But. Yeah but, my union rep called me and said I’m cancelling the meeting. This of course is yet another story. I was free to go with Diane, I had been thinking a lot about her recently and was looking forward to spending some time with her, even if it was a long motorway drive. So we arrived at the airport and G didn’t know I was coming. The smile and delight on her face was pure heaven, we hugged in a group in the middle of costa coffee, people around us were smiling, a truly beautiful moment. G hugged and hugged I didn’t think she would let go. So we drove back to Lincolnshire.
Diane and I had talked about Luna and we wondered if she would remember G and be pleased to see her, I was so desperate to see how the bloody damn dog would react to seeing G come home, gosh that’s what it was innit a bloody “homecoming”, there’s something really significant about that. I thought to myself I’ll ask if I can come back to the house with them but it felt a bit disjointed somehow. I was looking at the passing motorway as we were driving back and kept thinking about it. It’s not really fair on Diane I thought, she’s just driven for 9 hours or so, I can’t expect her to nip me home later. I started daydreaming, and seeing Luna going crazy when G came in the door, “would you like to stay for some tea” “oh yes please”, “oh you may as well stay for the night” you can sleep in my bed, we cuddled and it felt warm and cozy and loving and nice.
“Fucking idiot” she said as the lorry pulled out in front of her, that ended my nice little daydream. Nearly home, she pulled in to my drive and I got out of the car, said my goodbyes and see you soons. I turned the key and opened the door to my little cold flat and made a cup of tea. I sat at the table and thought about Luna and G and Diane. I left it for a while and I thought “I’ve just got to know” so I called Diane and said “how did Luna react” I could hear Charlie my son shout “hellooo Dad” Diane said I’ll put you on speaker. she explained that Luna had gone nuts and was so excited to see G she was jumping on and off the sofa and spinning around. I enjoyed the moment. I said goodbye. My heart was wrenched out of my chest, by some sort of invisible force. That was my family in a house all together, with the dog, a homecoming. Here I sit in my cold little flat. The loss, the cavern of despair the darkness and cruel feeling of something so precious yet just out of reach. I took part, sort of but that distance, that short distance feels so far, it feels so so damn far. I started crying, I couldn’t stop, I cried for so damn long, the loss the hunger to be whole again, the despair, it’s in my stomach it’s in my whole body, I live with it and it haunts me. Maybe just maybe, will I feel whole again, I yearn for it. I yearn for that empty feeling to be filled. But till then I’ll cry and fill it with tears. The long lasting empty tears of pain and sorrow that seem to linger in the dark depths of my being. Can it, someone tell me, can it be filled again.
