Been trying to deal with family and relatives abroad. They are trying to understand and help but they are so far away they can't really do anything. I am so shellshocked now and trying hard to keep going that I am beginning not to have an awful lot of patience on the phone. Got told off this evening for not phoning back and keeping in touch but sometimes I can hardly bear to phone anyone. How odd that these phone calls hurt. I think they do because the people involved can't be here in person and I guess that's what I want. And I guess they are painful also because they are simply not Mum. That's not something they can help.
I tried to explain about the piano and about Flash and how the piano was taken away two days after Flash's burial and I was feeling like dying myself. The piano hire people insisted, saying they would take me to court if I didn't. It put me under an enormous amount of pressure, I felt so ill. I decided to cope with it by recording some of my own songs and improvised instrumental piano pieces. The recording itself didn't take long but trying to set it all up took ages. Then I got someone to video me playing the piano before it was collected. Although it seemed like a good idea and a good way of saying goodbye to an instrument it was very painful. I really had to stop and take deep breaths before each stage ok: sing (take deep breath) ok: write out chord charts (take deep breath) ok: put make up on and a nice outfit for video (deep breath).
But when two really ugly geezers came to pick up the piano, I was finally ready. I had said my goodbyes. They came in, took the piano and went. And that was it. They didn't even have time to snigger. I didn't give them an excuse. They were just in and out.
I went out straight away. I couldn't bear to be in the house any more. I went to my comedy class. I won't say it was one of the most successful comedy classes I 've ever had. But at least I was in the company of people who were, one way or another, all having a laugh.
These ways of coping took their toll though. I've got a really bad throat, can hardly speak, I think I've got a virus coming on. Then in the middle of all this, these relatives from Canada starting calling, really worried and thinking something had happened to me because I hadn't called back. Apparently they had left about four messages on various voicemails and had tried to e-mail me but it kept bouncing back with failed delivery. I got bawled out for not answering my voicemails. But I never got them, neither did I get the e-mails. I had to apologise for the failed communications. But if I never got the messages, how can I answer them? I told them that but they were in such a state that I don't think they heard me. While we were talking, I kept thinking, "Crikey if you only knew what I've been through these past few days!" I tried to explain what it had been like. But how can they know what the piano meant to me, what the dog had meant to me? They were saying: "Well so what? Send the piano back!" and if I was in their shoes and didn't understand and was trying to communicate from a different country, I might be tempted to think the same thing: " So what?" But it was very NOT a "So what?" sort of situation.
It has been a very odd situation. I was in a very unhealthy relationship with the piano hire company. Looking back, I think they were some sort of gang. Like a sort of educated criminal syndicate. They were like a bunch of ex-cons. They had no scruples and didn't give a XXXX about anyone. They just wanted their piano back although they had been ready and eager enough to take our money when we first hired it two years ago before Mum died. I reminded them of that but nothing I said had any effect by that stage. I could have toughed it out with them but in the end I had enough on my plate without that. They were ready to have a good laugh at a weeping female clinging to a piano and grizzling about her dead dog and her dead mother. I had to put a stop to all of that. These are the people who would torment those who are mentally ill as well.
I notice that death is making people nastier and underneath it all is their own fear of dying. We are supposed to worship at the altar of eternal life but what that does is deny the reality of death. oddly enough.
And maybe, just maybe, now I have faced all that, I can now weed out other unhealthy situations and people in my life too.
