Losing You
Knowing we were losing you was a new agony. Distraction and denial were the crutches that pushed and dragged us through the days, each one taking us closer to your last, our last one with you.
The months, were punctuated with bursts of realisation, of the shortening time, but also of your need for more rest, more drugs...
You were braver than I could ever fully describe with words and your courage made it possible for us to be strong for you. Trying always to give you something to look forward to, next month Graeme, Jen and the kids will be here. We’ll get to meet baby Isla, we’ll go away for an overnight stay at a lodge, we’ll have lunch at Gleneagles, we’ll have photographs taken of all of us, our whole family.
Ten short days in the history of time where all thirteen of our family were together.
Friday the 27th September, was my Dad’s birthday, but in 2019 it was the day you rang us at 8.30am. “Can you come?”
An infection, we were told. The hospital will get him on antibiotics through a drip and he’ll be home in a few days... that evening we were given the agonising news that the scan showed the end was near, very near. No longer could we cherish the idea of a few more months, not even a few weeks...days, only days and we would lose you.
Your dignity, your amazing strength and bravery will stay with us forever. Your breathing and those debilitating hiccups through the hours of the last day into the night, Fr. Ivan coming at 10.00pm to give you the comfort of the Last Rites with Graeme and I listening to your response and hearing our hearts break.
Then in those dark early hours while Graeme tried to go back for some rest, Paul and I stretched out in the Family Room across the corridor, your Dad sat with you. Your breathing slowed, stopped briefly then started, then gradually stopped. And so abruptly you were gone from us. Gone from the body that failed you too soon, far too soon.
Here I sit, one year later. Still, so often in disbelief that you are really gone and never able to come back to us. Still, thinking if I can cry hard enough, pray sincerely enough, scream loud enough... that it will turn the world back to restore you into our healthy, loving, unique David.
Each day is hard, anniversaries are even harder as we think “this time last year...” Now it is exactly one year since you were with us and it has been an hour by hour recollection of those last days.
Later this morning we’ll collect the wreath we ordered and visit your grave. Inscribed across the base of your headstone reads - Loved * Missed * Remembered - You are, and always will be. May your Heaven be all you had hoped for.
To our wonderful, brave boy David.
((((Hugs))))
Heartbreaking.
Thinking of you
