Anniversary

………well I am going to complete the speech I promise my love but while I work on that I just wanted to mark the fact that yesterday was our anniversary. It would have been fourteen years.

I can remember the first one we celebrated in India. We sat drinking and watching the sun set on ‘Lighthouse’ beach in Kovalam. We watched the sea crash under strings of twinkling, glowing, golden beads. I made you a card and we ate seafood.

There were others I can remember and many I can’t – but that’s a good thing! More than one was spent drunkenly going through old records, a few spent eating expensive food, one of them may have been responsible for Cassidy and one I was pregnant during but still managed to sip champagne. Last year I cooked you a Thai feast and you drank some red wine and more than one Jack Daniels and Coke. I wrote you another card. This one said something like ‘ 13 years – unlucky for some but not for us because we nearly lost each other and here I am writing you another love letter – I will not let you go again’. Well how wrong I was because when the time came I had to let you go.

13. A number tainted with negativity and touched with superstition and doubt. Surely we should have known it was destined to be an unhappy year. We started it on a back pedal – how could it have ever moved forward under that kind of dark, miserable cloud.

And it has been a terrible year, one of death and sadness. The sum of its parts has been unlucky but it has also been a year of celebration. It has hosted some of the most uplifting and positive moments of my life. It has been a year where I have learnt more about love friendship and their infinite capacity. A year where we have known the inner strength we possess and the wonder of ourselves and our children. It was an extra year granted to us, not but a higher order, but by you Paul. When the doctors said you would die in the ITU of Whipps crosss you didn’t, when they said the cancer would take you so many times you defied it and you gave us a summer of laughter and hope. So I would say that, depending on how you look at it, the number 13 has been very, very lucky for us.

So Happy anniversary my love.

My darling,

When you were suddenly taken ill last November, when you were hooked up to that life giving but hideous ventilator that bleeped and flashed endlessly with alarming constancy. When you were in the ITU of Whipps Cross, I found it difficult to keep the dark thoughts at bay. My mind would wander during the day and I would have these waking nightmares of imagined, hideous scenarios. The most recurrent was standing up at your funeral and giving a eulogy. I would find myself running through the words and weeping at inopportune moments, at the checkout in Tesco’s, walking home after the school run, stirring spaghetti or during story time. More than once I actually slapped myself around the face. Partly to snap myself out of the madness and partly because I was so cross at myself for thinking such miserable, hateful things. I hesitate in telling your people this as it’s so personal and also makes me seem quite unhinged. But I want to try my best to give them a window to the emotional side of this journey. This was our life and if I’m going to do this confessional shit I may as well go the whole hog!

I digress.

So I found a way to deflect this particular nightmare by mentally subverting the funeral speech into a wedding one. My eulogy became a celebration of what we have rather than the past tense. And you know what? It worked. Then when we decided to get married I really wanted to say a few words, but to be honest I bottled it and I’m glad I did because I’m not sure I would have enjoyed the day quite so much. Then your funeral loomed and I vowed to do you justice then by saying all the things I wanted to. The little bits and the big. I wanted to tell your people about the beginning as well as the end. But I could not speak. I said a lot that day but I did not speak.

So if I had done a speech it might have gone a little like this……..

My love,

To write since you died has been too painful. I try and try but my fingers falter. But it was like this when I started this blog except that then I had you to egg me on and push me forward. I know I have to try and be strong again. When we started it was to keep you in the forefront of everybody’s minds. We needed love, energy, good thoughts and vibes and we got them tenfold. Everyone chanted and prayed and cried and laughed with us. All of your people waited everyday to hear your news, they were here when we celebrated your remission and they were here when you had to go.

I have only realised in this last couple of empty months that this whole fucking blog thing was as much about keeping me alive as it was you. It’s a strange thing that it’s easier to be intimate with a thousand faceless people than it is with the person sitting next to you. So I want to carry on if that’s ok? I have things to say about the darkness but I want to keep you alive and there is also the story of us. The one before you got sick. The one where we lived happily ever after, the one we talked about which started on Dean Street and ended on a verandah in Thailand in our dotage, sipping ‘Sang Thip’ and setting off firecrackers till dawn.

Each word to you feels clumsy and has been reviewed, amended and deleted a million times. I want to do you justice With every letter I have punched tonight I have shed a thousand tears. Do you think that if I keep typing and typing they will eventually run out?

I might try…………

I'm trying

to write a blog. I compose a million a day in my head and today I got this far........

Here

I am here, I am here - I'm just thinking..........

Goodbye

The day dawned with grey light and dread in my heart. If I hadn’t escaped the house then I might have gone mad.

I have to say "Goodbye"; I have to say "Goodbye".

I meant to have a glass of Dutch courage but I forgot. There were family and friends and mostly I wandered around looking for things I had dropped and needed and seemed really important but actually weren’t. Then the car came. The one with the box and the flowers I didn’t want; because blooms should be cheerful not gloomy. I told Cassidy the box with the shell inside was here and he slid down the banister in one go and jumped down the path and told me the flowers were pretty and suddenly they weren’t so gloomy after all.

I have to say "Goodbye"; I have to say "Goodbye".

We drove and we arrived and although I knew there would be people waiting, my heart flipped when I saw the flowing sea of faces. Eyes and lips moved but I kept white noise close and the sound of Cassidy and Kitty closer. Going in was hard. Seeing him arrive was strangely easy.

I have to say "Goodbye"; I have to say "Goodbye".

The words were heartfelt and love sent, I tried hard not to listen sometimes but the true ones burst through despite my efforts and they will stay with me. I heard no tears and I was grateful. The curtains closed because that’s what they do and it’s supposed to be poignant but seemed pointless. Keep them open, let’s linger, let me walk away.

I whispered “Goodbye”, I whispered “Goodbye”

The pub, his people, they came and drank and talked and I danced. It’s a blur to be truthful, a wonderful whiskey blur of stories and laughter. Old faces I’ve met and some I haven’t but know now. Family in arms and friends weeping happy tears. What a crack, what a wake, what a joy to celebrate.

I said “Goodbye”, I said “Goodbye”.

3 words

When the woman who is holiding the cermony asked for three words to describe Paul I found it really hard to narrow it down so I asked for you help

I thought I would post them here for you now

AJ Butterworth : Gentle, proud, and witty.

Nathan: fantasy football god

Becci: Generous, caring and incredibly knowledgable

Gaz: Everybody's Best Friend!

Denise Retallick: intelligent, selfless, fun

Kaye Butterworth Altruistic. Erudite. Handsome

Natalia: Husband. Father. Friend

Jane Harris: Hannah, Kitty, Cassidy.

Natalie Murray: Kind, Generous and warm hearted

Tamara Giltsoff: Generous smart stoic

Wendy Cave: Courage, Wisdom, Wit

Jessie Intellectual, brave scotsman

Tom Foley: "3 words ! doesnt even touch the sides !

check all of these in your thesaurus.........
1 honest.. 2 cantankerous 3 gregariouus 4 special 5 the very best pal all of us are so very blessed and lucky to have known paul and to keep him strong in our hearts always !"

Derek Riddell: caring, happy and fun

Paula Baker Intellegence, Integrity, Inspiring

Jo Hammond: Unassuming, glaswegian, gentleman

Beth: Courageous , loveable , funny

Fran: Rush, Hour, Laughing

Mug: Man and Superman

Rory: Honest

Amber: integrity. wit. Kind

Aiofe: Intelligent, sarcastic and heroic x

Ali: Wise, adventurous and loveable.

Mum: Love,lamb and laughter

Mine will always be

( I've taken mine out because I did it in a rush and looking back I want to put the right words or none at all)

p.s I can and will add to this list so if you want to send your three words then do to hannah_mackey@excite.com