The end.

So it’s Sunday evening. My father, eldest daughter and granddaughter came to visit today. I don’t see any of them very often, not having a car. My granddaughter started school this month. She was born the day after mid summers day 2020. I still remember clear as day meeting my daughter just before Christmas 2019 and her telling me she was pregnant. Rather than telling me, she gave me a Christmas card and in the inside was a hospital scan. As you can imagine, it was quite emotional.

She is a beautiful child. Of course, I would say that but it’s true nonetheless. Her mother is beautiful as is her grandmother. It feels weird referring to my ex like that so many years after we split up, but it’s true. Just one reason why I got with her in the first place. Both my daughter and granddaughter have her eyes.

My father is moving in with his partner this year and has been going through all his stuff, thinning it out as he can’t take it all with him. He brought up several items with him. It’s been quite poignant for him and sitting with him discussing the stories behind the items he brought up, it was for me too. His flat is the one I lived in when I met My Lady. I’m going to ask him if I can spend half an hour or so alone in it before he hands over the keys. It was always comforting, him living there. Every time I visited him there, my mind would be awash with all the happy times I spent there. The first time I told My Lady that I loved her. My eldest daughter stopping to see me on the way home when she finished school. It was also there that I wrote my first ever songs.

Last time my father visited, he wanted to talk about his funeral. I am to be sole executor. Great. That just brought a flood of memories of trying to wade through everything when My Lady died. It’s probably the worst type of admin process anyone can do. I spent weeks sat at my dining table with my laptop, crying my eyes out for hours on end and staring out the window at our garden she loved so much.

He wants me to play Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd on his guitar. Well, shit, how would I manage that at his funeral? I’ve able to play it for years, but at his funeral? I can’t even imagine how I’ll manage it. I don’t have the vocal range to do it justice either. I’ll be insisting everyone sings it. I’ll never get through it otherwise.

This visit, it was my turn to discuss my funeral. There’s a song by Machine Head called Darkness Within. It’s all about when Robb Flynn was in a dark place and how music saved him. Like I said to my daughter and father, if it wasn’t for music, I wouldn’t be here now. It literally saved my life, I don’t know how many times. I used to find it weird thinking about my funeral, never mind actually talking about it. After all the family members that have died in the last ten or more years, as a family we have no problem talking about such dark things. Good thing too as too many people don’t have these conversations and when the end comes, so much gets lost or misunderstood.

I played Darkness Within to them and gave them a printout of the lyrics to read while it played. They totally got it. Bless him, my father was shaking a bit as the song progressed. If it wasn’t for him, I’d have never been a musician and as I said, I wouldn’t be here now. I didn’t say it but he knew the implication. Without him passing on the love of musicianship, I’d be dead now. I don’t say that lightly either. It’s a 100% certainty.

So after much discussion about this and music in general, they left and we all felt better, not only for seeing each other, but having had the above discussion. As you can imagine, it left me quite reflective hence my presence in the garden at my local McDonald’s yet again. It’s payday in the morning and I had just enough to get a small meal and sit out here bashing out this drivel yet again. I’ve been rather prolific in my writing this year as you will know if you’ve followed this blog.

Both of them know all about my dear friend at work and I updated them both as to what’s happened in the last month or so. It’s left me thinking about it a lot. I played a couple of the songs we shared to them and I’ve been listening to the playlist ever since. Joy. Why do I do this to myself? I was getting somewhere with dealing with it too. It’s surreal looking across the car park that My Lady and I used countless times while also thinking about my dear friend at the same time. As a widow, I knew that at some point I’d probably find love again and I also knew that I’d never stop loving My Lady too. I always wondered how my mind would reconcile that. I’m starting to understand it now. My Lady will always be burned into my soul to the day I die, but I know now that I can love someone new without it detracting from the love I have for her. I honestly never thought I’d be able to do that. It’s over four and a half years since she died now and I’m still single with no real chance of that changing any time soon.

My Lady used to say sometimes “You’d better wait more than a bloody year”. Well, I never thought that would ever be tested. I always “knew” I’d die before her. How wrong I was. I don’t often spend much time thinking about what she would think of my life without her any more but this… This is different. I hope she would feel honored in some way by my loyalty after her death, if that’s even the word I’m looking for. I’ve caught the feels once or twice, but love? No. Not until this year.

Ironic that it should be for someone not available. I still haven’t heard from her and I’m pretty sure I won’t now. I’m grieving the loss of her friendship more than anything else but the extra feels… Damn. The thought of her reciprocating, even a tiny bit makes it so much harder to deal with. I honestly thought I’d never feel like this again in my life. Life goes on. As ever. I will feel better eventually of course but the taste of it has been intoxicating all year. What a waste of a lovely connection.

So it’s a new week in the morning. My birthday week. I still don’t really know how I feel about turning fifty. People say it’s just a number and normally I’d agree but half a century is a big deal however you want to look at it. A couple of hundred years ago the life expectancy wasn’t more than forty for the average working class person. Well, no one can say I’m not a survivor. Life has thrown crap after crap after crap at me and I’m still here, fighting the bastard with my middle fingers still held up to the cosmos. Do your worst. Oh wait, you already did. Fuck you Cosmos. Bring it on…

So mote it be.