A meme to lighten the atmosphere a bit
I stole it from BeeCee.
4 things I did 10 years ago (1998 - I was 14)
- Chose my GCSE options. I chose Religious Studies which set me on that path and ultimately led to my BA in Theology, Art because I had some confidence in my ability, French because I loved it, and History, because I’m clearly not right. I hated History. Well, I hated the teacher.
- Saw the Manic Street Preachers for the first time. It was amazing.
- Got online for the first time and got sucked into chatroom life.
- First started taking anti-depressants.
4 things I did 5 years ago (2003 - I was 19)
- Chose a house to live in with three girls in my 2nd and 3rd years at university. We had lived in halls together and got a lovely terraced house not far from uni.
- Celebrated my dad’s 50th birthday - we had a big party and it was a really lovely night, one of my favourite memories actually.
- Himself and I went to Whitby in the November and had a lovely weekend in the teeniest cottage ever - the bed was in an alcove and it was so romantic!
- Started working at the Supermarket-of-Doom, where I would work for two years.
4 things I did yesterday
- Had a good chat with my bosses and I think I can keep changing my work hours according to how I feel daily.
- Rang up about an appointment with a counsellor my Dr referred me to. We’ll see how this goes; I had a really bad experience with a counsellor when I was 18.
- Had a yummy piece of chocolate cake from the sandwich shop near my work.
- Started reading The Devil Wears Prada, and I’m enjoying it.
4 things I love to watch
- Coronation Street - the only thing I watch with any regularity. I am addicted.
- Skins - this teen drama thing which is ridiculously over the top but which is also very well done and beautifully crafted.
- Shameless - which is a comedy about a really chavvy family and it’s ridiculous too, but it’s funny.
- King of the Hill - I find it very satirical in parts.
4 things I love to do
- Write in my journal.
- Look at holidays and houses I can’t afford.
- Play with Ivy, the cat.
- Buy books. Like, way too many.
I never tag people, but feel free to steal it!
I really want…
Someone to come and take care of me so I can get on with actually grieving.
To not be at work right now. I just don’t care about it.
My dad’s business partner to politely eff off out of the picture for a while and leave my poor mother alone.
Some lunch.
Well. That one I can fix, I think.
One month
A month ago at this time, I was sitting here at work, happily singing along to my last.fm radio, and thinking about how happy I was.
Meanwhile, my mother had lunch with my dad at his office and told him she’d see him later.
He left for an appointment with his counsellor at 1.35, and never turned up. While I was chatting to Himself on googlemail, my dad was deciding that the best course of action for us all was for him to die.
He was wrong of course, but that’s what psychosis does to a person.
One month, and in a way it feels like three; I have grown up so much, I have had to make some very hard decisions, I have had to listen to a hundred well-meaning platitudes from people who should have kept their mouth shut, I have had to tell my dad’s brother that they’d found his body, I have had to listen to my mother cry and know there was absolutely nothing I could do to absolve her pain.
Yesterday we put a cross on my dad’s grave. You can’t have a headstone for at least 6 months, but we didn’t like it being unmarked - like the Unknown Soldier, or something. So now he has a nice mahogany cross. That is good.
Excellent news about Caro @ ThirdTimeLucky
I knew she must be having her baby because she hasn’t been on googlechat all week. This is the text I just got:
“He made it finally at 18.46 last night (30th). Weighing in at 3.66kg and 52cm long. We are all tired but very happy. Caro xxx”
Yay for them. Go over and wish Caro and S your congratulations 
I am sure she’ll be back soon with stories and photos.
Edit: I would have posted this on her blog, except I can’t. She and I talked about it and I gave her my mobile number, which is how I got the text, but then my dad died and I never got round to getting her password or anything. But I am glad to be able to post this here, and she will definitely get all your comments.
Hey numbskull
I just lost my dad, yes? And you know that, right? So why, for the love of god, are you complaining about your dad to me? Do you know what I would give to hear my dad right now, even if he was having a go at me? Please, shut up. Remember your audience.
Monday
One of the worst things I have ever had to do was last night, when Himself and I came home back to our house. We hadn’t slept here since Tues 8th. On Weds 9th my dad was simply “missing” (and oh what hell that is) and we stayed at my mother’s, and only came home last night. I know I had to leave her at some point, I know that whether it was last night or in two weeks or two months or whatever, it would have been painful for all of us. She had to be by herself at some point. We all cried, but she survived it. She’s strong.
I do find it weird that since we moved out of that house I have referred to it as ‘my mother’s’, not ‘my parents”. Now of course it is only hers. She won’t have to move and I’m not sure she ever will to be honest - there isn’t much mortgage on it.
Other worst things I have had to do:
1) Tell my uncle that they had found my dad’s body. “They” being the police. I didn’t have to tell him - the police liaison people would have - but I felt very strongly that my dad wanted me to.
2) Identify my dad’s body. Six of us went to the hospital mortuary (pray you never have to visit one, they are soulless places) and my mother and I had to formally identify him.
3) Listen to my mother sobbing at night and knowing there was absolutely fuck all I could do to help
4) Have to choose about thirty years too early what to i) bury my father in; ii) songs to play at his funeral; iii) to write on the card for his flowers, because how are you supposed to put it into words on a credit card sized piece of paper? I settled for some lyrics from La Cienega Just Smiled and told him thank you for being ours - ours because he was another father to Himself, you know? - and that made my mother cry and hers made me cry because she put ‘Lizzy’ on hers and he was the only person who ever called her that.
5) Become joint custody holder of the “suicide” note my dad left addressed to my mother and myself. I say “suicide” because the note does not explicitly say that he was going to harm himself. The police officer said it wasn’t so much a suicide note as “an apology, and a love letter” and that helps.
6) First of all try to get my head round the fact that my dad somehow managed to drown himself in a popular lake, where, for fuck’s sake, there are dog walkers all times of the day. And then had to discover that actually we were informed wrong and that he actually drowned in the river Calder, which is fucking terrifying at the best of times. To add further insult to injury, the local bloody paper had the facts right when we didn’t.
There will be an inquest because he did not die of natural causes. I find myself talking about this as if it’s all completely normal, when of course, it is not.
My dad had been suffering from a psychosis for about a year. He was utterly convinced that the police were after him. He thought he had done something illegal on his computer. He hadn’t. We asked the police and they had never even heard of him. But psychotic people are exactly that: psychotic. He wasn’t himself, is what everyone is saying. If he had been, he would never have left us. I am trying to cling to that.
Today is not a good day. I am not okay. But I’m trying to be.
Funeral
It’s the funeral today. Viky and Sam are coming. I think it might possibly be one of the worst days ever, but we’ll get through it. My mother is being very brave.
Suppose I ought to go put some clothes on or something useful.
Love you all xxxx
A week
My mother and I went to work yesterday - firstly to hers for a couple of hours, then here for about 4. Then we were tired and went home. Well, to hers, where Himself and I are staying at least until after the funeral. There were 28 cards through the letterbox and another huge bunch of flowers. The living room looks like a florists.
There’s no point sitting at home because everything is done there. The funeral is on Friday. I fear though what happens after that - how can I/we be expected to return to normal when nothing will ever be normal again?
I’m at work now until about 1pm. My dad went missing around 2pm last Wednesday, and the police think that he drowned himself soon after, so there was nothing anybody could have done. I don’t really want to be here at that time, so I’ll go home instead.
We’re doing okay, hour by hour.
Donations
Here’s the donations button. Feel free to put this on Lost and Found too by the way
Well
When I posted on Thursday it still sort of looked like the press might get hold of this story so I kept it protected. So far they haven’t and at this point I’m beyond caring actually. My dad took his own life on Wednesday afternoon. To begin with it looked a lot like a missin person’s thingy but me and my mother knew really. He was found less than 24 hours later in a local lake.
We had to identify the body on Friday afternoon and he looked very peaceful, and all his worry lines had gone. He had been suffering from a paranoid psychosis and so he wasn’t in his right mind and believe us, if he had have been, the last thing he would have done would be leave my mother and me. He had left a note and as the police liaison person said, it reads like an apology and a love letter not anythng else.
I’ve got his St Christopher around my neck, because one of my earliest memories is trying to grab it.
The funeral will probably be Friday, and a couple of online friends have asked whether we’re taking donations, and we will be. They’ll go to Mind, the UK mental health charity. I’ll let you know about that later, though.
We’re doing okay. I’m doing okay because my dad would want me to. I’m not angry at him but angry at circumstances that have lead to this, really. It’s very sad, but we will of course be okay in time.
