Selfish sadness

Sat here listening to R.E.M. opposite a photo of a smug looking Paul I am reminded that he it was who came home with Murmur and that was my first taste of R.E.M. We had tickets to see them in Hyde Park on the Saturday after the Thursday when a group of evil Islamics blew up trains and a bus in London. Never did get to see them.

To even consider that not seeing R.E.M. was sad compared to real sadness is a travesty but its roots lie in selfishness. I'd have loved to see R.E.M. in Hyde Park but in the scheme of things it's insignificant.

With Paul's diagnosis the sadness was overwhelming and unrelenting. It still is.
Emotionally thoughts run about out of control but eventually there comes a point when you find yourself focused on me. How am I going to cope without him?

Cue a mass of guilt and a spell of more disordered thought. You consider what you can do for his wife and son, his sister, his mum and then you're  back at me. Who will I ask about, who will help me do, who will sort the computer,  the stereo and so it goes on. And the guilt becomes unbearable.

Then you get to the point when you realise that the depth to which his suffering affects you is a mark of how deeply you loved him. The fear, apprehension, reality of his loss is a mark of how closely your lives were entwined, how you depended on him for so much. Advice. Knowledge. Alternatives. Options.

This summer I redecorated this room and that meant disassembling the stereo. The main components are over twenty years old. The only component I've set up is the record deck. Everything else was put together by Paul. I knew what I wanted, he'd advise about cabling especially. He had a thing about cabling things up. Just as well for a network designer, implementer, administrator.

Under the pre amp there was a diagram of connections and a note to leave it alone. I couldn't, didn't and after a few false starts the noise from the right bit comes from the right place.

The computer, too I had to format c as he used to say and do a clean install. I did that last summer. Last time I did it was Windows 95 and Lotus Smartsuite. But it works. Sort of.

Getting by while his smug grin looks at me from a wooden frame in the hearth. He'd appreciate the music.

Now I'm getting bouts of guilt again. A continuation with a twist. For years every time I bought anything I'd run it past him to make sure that he was happy about it reasoning that eventually half would be his. That's why I had two record decks.

I liked the idea that when I bought some all singing all dancing Bosch professional goodness, or a bike, or whatever eventually it would end up being at his disposal. Maybe his sister wants a Bosch 550W oscillating saw. Maybe not. Probably doesn't want a large Specialized Crosstrail push bike either. He wouldn't have wanted a Brompton so there's a degree of redress and balance.

It hurts to have to think about who will put the tools to best use. I hope Paul's sisters partner is handy. Our grandson is a bit young to use such tools and by the time he can he'll probably do it with an app.

Selfish thoughts, again. Overwhelming and unrelenting sadness. But not despair. Peace abounds and occasionally there are wisps of joy like listening to R.E.M. streamed from the server upstairs and sounding utterly fabulous. That's part of his legacy to me.

Wish I could have left him mine.
Back to thinking about me again.

Time to change

Tonight the clocks go back an hour, today the shorts have given way to jeans one day early. It is cold, a north westerly breeze gently shakes the Union Flag over the D-Day museum, the Normandie has just serenely steamed outbound past the window, the sun making her white superstructure all the more emphatic. How I'd love to be aboard her, again.

Beyond her Jaynee W alters course by about 120 degrees as having been lightened by transferring fuel to the ferries she makes her way to Fawley for replenishment. There is nothing very pretty about her ungainly mass of pipework and derricks above deck, nor anything attractive about her rust streaked black sides rising above her grubby faded red antifouled hull.

Without one the other would struggle but Brittany Ferries would no doubt find a way to navigate around the absence of the Jaynee W. It may not be as easy or convenient but it would be done. Life's like that.

Sat here on this beautiful Saturday watching ships pass in the serene way that ships do from the comfort of our daughter and her partners flat it occurs to me that I have a nothing day. A day when I don't have to do anything. A day when I'd be happy to do even less.

A day when you feel it safe to allow your mind to reflect and bask in calm contemplation. There haven't been many of these recently. And hitherto the fear of allowing ones mind to revisit recent memories has inevitably led to an aversion to permitting it free rein.

Today feels a fresh day. A refreshing day. A day when you're prepared to allow the mind to revisit places you wish you'd never been. A day so bright and lovely that looking out of the window details of the far shore are revealed in stark clarity. Not that the Isle of Wight has a particularly attractive shore line but it is interesting if only because it is there.

On Thursday 12th October 2017 at about third coffee of the day whilst sat in the garden enjoying the sun on a hot day the phone rang. The screen lit up "Paul MOB" and the heart lit up too. We're coming down a day early, OK? Of course, silly question but before I could say much a note of caution shimmied across the ether. They were cutting their holiday short.

I need to speak to mum.
I passed her the phone.
I watched through the kitchen window as she sat, listened with increasing attentiveness and then slowly drawing paper and pen towards her addressed the paper with absolute concentration.
Countenance giving cause for concern. I went indoors but kept my distance desperate to know but anxious lest I disturb.
Conversation businesslike, notes taken swiftly, look of sadness growing ever deeper, short instructions.
End of conversation, more concentrated looking at notes, minor corrections, clarifications.
Without looking up another phone call. Very businesslike, short, clipped, determined, desperate. Borne of recent experience she knew exactly the person to speak to, the form of words to employ and the tone of voice used no doubt said more than the words.

Finally, looking up I was told that "it's you all over again"
Within a couple of hours Paul came through the front door. That very instant I knew. Only a few weeks ago, August Bank Holiday he'd been so well, or so it seemed but looking back, closely examining the photos there were signs.

Within an hour he'd seen our doctor, within another two he was in the very ward I'd been in at the start only nine months ago.

Seventy two hours later the phone lit up with "Paul MOB" again.
Again I answered. No joy this time. Angiosarcoma. Terminal. A few months, maybe a year. Starting chemo here. Pretty much now.

Nothing can prepare you.
Nothing can affect you so dramatically or effect you so wholly.

Not even being told exactly fifty one weeks later on 5th October 2018 at shortly after nine that your numbers aren't good, the scan showed a lump where there shouldn't be a lump and we can start chemo on Monday.

Whoa! Hang on. Slow down. At times your brain fills with questions but it somehow triages them ruthlessly. How wonderful your brain is.
I feel so well. You look so well. We will stop all the blood tests, have a scan in two months and see you on 5th December. We will start chemo, aggressive chemo, then.
But I feel so well.
Depending on the scan we may delay till January.
Prognosis?
No cure but on average from the start of chemo life expectancy is 13 months.
If there is anything you want to do, do it in the next two months.

It was nowhere near as much of a blow as Paul had been, for me, at least.
It also assumes that I want chemo.

Looking up the Union Flag tells me the wind' s gone more northerly and stiffened, there's no one in shorts so the first day in jeans is the right choice and the ugliest class of vessel afloat, Autostar, Portuguese registered, 22,000 tons steams past at 16 knots delivering how many thousands of cars I can only guess at or Google if I could be bothered. But for all her ugliness she is a fine sight and doing the job for which she was designed with ruthless efficiency. To my left a voice describes her a a monstrous slug sliding along. A bit harsh, although apt, she is merely doing her job as best she can and at maximum benefit to her owners and vendors of her cargo.

According to AIS, Drive Green Highway,  red and white split by a black go fast stripe, Panamanian registered, 76,000 tons, doing 15kts will be passing shortly with another umpteen thousand cars aboard. A rough calculation tells me I can get up, make coffee, get back comfortably in time to watch her pass by. I can do this all day.

Mindoro, oil tanker, Maltese registration, 106,000 tons en route Fawley. Towing tug Phenix. Beyond are St.Clare going and St.Cecila coming both Ro-Ro IoW ferries. Yachts abound as does just about every type of vessel imaginable. Including the hovercraft.

Life goes on.
Wonderful, isn't it?

Many Happy Returns of The Day

That's what it often said on birthday cards.
Threescore years and ten used often to be mentioned.
Today Paul would have been 36.

No plans, no expectations.

But we had intended to go to see Mumbles lighthouse from here

Instead, our view was somewhat different. Somewhat familiar albeit in a place I hadn't been since I was 14.

The entrance to a PET scanner unit. The doors open to a set of rooms where cannulas are inserted, blood is taken, tested and a dose of radioactive sugar solution is administered. Once all is well the cannula is removed and you are required to lie still for an hour or so whilst the radioactivity is allowed to do its job.

Then 40 minutes or more are spent flat on your back with your hands above your head whilst motors whirr, switches click and clack as you are moved back and forth in a very expensive tube.

So much lying around on any other day would not have been so bad. But today.

Too much time to think. Too much to remember. Too much to relive. Too much to assimilate. Too much to even try to come to terms with. Just far too much.

Sadness so deeply felt, waves of it relentlessly rolling every thought in an ever tighter and darker spiral.  Probably as bad today as any in the last year. But no despair. No questions. Acceptance of what is and what will be. Faith forced to be real. 

Gratitude for every memory, even the recent ones in their terrible way. 

Thankfulness for the thirty five and a half years we had. 

Wonder as we were privileged to witness the way he dealt with his final months, days, hours and minutes.

Sadness that he's not here, sadness compounded by his absence from wife and son.

It is a magnificent gift when your son demonstrates to you how to die well. 

I hope I measure up to the standard he established.

Paul was a far better man than his dad ever was or will be.

Today was not a good day.