Dear Mam,
It has been 30 days since I’ve seen you, and it still feels
like you’re coming back. It feels a bit like we’re all pretending, and I’m
still doing things at 100 miles a minute waiting for you to call me, or for me
to have to come and visit you.
People keep telling me that I’ll go through ‘Phases’. Of
being angry, of being sad, of missing you. I do go through phases, but not of
different emotions. I go through phases of forgetting, and phases of
remembering things in such painful detail that my heart feels like it’s going
to fall out of my chest. Most of all,
I’m lonely. I’ve never felt lonely before because I always had you in my head,
to worry about. You were always in there with my other thoughts, rattling about
in my brain, always on my peripheral. A direct part in any decision I made, any
place I went. And now I don’t have to factor any of that into it anymore. I
haven’t been able to put my finger on it before day, but I’m wandering, looking
for you or anything that reminds me of you because it almost seems as if you
were never here at all. It used to do my head in, constantly trying to work
around you, and now it’s like I’ve got too much of everything, and too little
of the one thing I really need.
I think perhaps that’s what I struggle with the most. That
someone can live for 52 years and fight as hard you did and there’s no physical
imprint here. I forgot that even when you were 7 stone and struggling for
breath, your character filled the room. You were such a big person really. And
now there’s just a hole. Some days it feels like a physical one, right in the
middle of my chest and I have to walk round with my arms around myself or I’m
sure I’ll fall part. I know that you
live on in me and in my memory, but some days that’s not enough, and today is
one of those days.
And I don’t want you to feel bad either. I know you said
sorry to me, I heard you loud and clear even though it was whisper soft. It
felt like the loudest thing I’d ever heard in the world and I wanted to kiss
you and shake you all at the same time because I knew what it meant. You were
sorry for giving in, but you didn’t have to be. I’m sorry too, for getting so
angry at the macmillan nurse and the Marie Curie nurse. It wasn’t their fault,
but I didn’t understand why they weren’t helping you. I felt so sad and
helpless seeing you in that little bed, and I guess I needed to be angry or else I was going to
pass out with the weight of what was really happening in that room. You were
finally leaving me, because you had no fight left. You were always so strong,
and so courageous. So adamant that you could beat anything, even when your body
told you no. I was and remain what you
made me, and I was only ever so positive because you made it look so
effortless. Just like when you pretended you weren’t scared of the dentist for
20 years of my life so I wouldn’t be. I’m sorry that I couldn’t pretend for you
that day mam. I was scared and I was
selfish because if I was scared you must have been positively terrified. It was
the first time you’d ever showed that to me. I wasn’t ready for it.
You
couldn’t tell me that it was going to be alright that day mam, so I had to tell
you. I know I was lying, but I hope you know what I meant. I hope you knew that I was telling you it was
okay for you to go. And that I’d look after Elly and Dad. And myself. I promise
I’ll look after myself too because I know you’d want me to. I know you hated leaning on me, but loved it
all at the same time. I bet you even had a laugh at my expense some days for
all the sleepless nights I gave you and all the dirty nappies. And all the
fights that we had the year I was 17. I bet you laughed looking back on them,
about how I was so sure that I was a big girl and ready to do it all on my own
and without you, and now, here I am at 20, wishing you’d come back and help me
out because I’m sodding useless at making decisions and crying in rooms on my
own like a loon. What a catch I turned out to be, hey!
I wanted to tell you that I did well in that exam I thought
I’d failed too. I rang my course tutor in your bedroom, and I was so happy that
I’d done well. I know if I’d have told you you’d say “see, I told you”, in that
way you always did, even though I’m sure after the great breakdown of second
year A levels, you were never really sure of anything with me anymore. I know
you were always proud of me though. You wanted me to do well in school, I knew
that, but you taught me all about the real things in life that were important.
Most importantly you taught me how to love myself, for who I am, and to be
comfortable in my own skin. To be able to be proud of myself when I’d done well
but also to call myself a silly idiot (or silly iriot, as you would have put
it) when I’d done something colossally stupid.
I never appreciated that until recently.
Anyway, I hope you were listening and I hope I made you proud. I can’t
promise you anything about the other exams though because they are looking to
be really hard so just send a bit of your academic wisdom (har har,) on that
day and I’m sure I’ll be okay.
I think that’s all I have to tell you for now mam. But I’m
just letting you know I miss you. I miss our conversations and cwtches and your
advice. I’ll miss you every day from now
till I’m 94, even when it’s irrational and I wouldn’t have had you anyway.
All my love,
Amy.
