A visit to the UK

I spent the better part of this week in the United Kingdom, on an official visit to meet some of our partners in Liverpool and Glasgow.  Liverpool was my first stop.  City of the Fab Four, the legendary Beatles and home to the greatest football club on this earth. Alright that might just be my totally unobjective view. And perhaps also for the millions of other fanatical die-hard supporters of the mighty Reds all over the world. OK, the once-upon-a-time mighty Reds. We are just respectfully but blatantly biased. But even when seen through rose-tinted lenses, as I stepped out from the Lime Street train station, the city appeared to have seen better days. Not quite decrepit but ostensibly dowdy and dated.

To be fair, my one night stay at Liverpool this week confined to the train station vicinity was far too brief to qualify me for comment on its true worth and heritage. But brief as it was, I was awash with waves of warm memories.  I had last visited Liverpool on a winter holiday with Jenny and the kids.  Some 8 years ago. We had great fun exploring the historic Albert Dockyards off the River Mersey, towering cathedrals and many of the free-admission museums around the city.

Most memorable was the tour to Anfield football stadium. No self-respecting fan would miss this pilgrimage. Even Jenny, who was never a football fan and understood little about the game was infected by my overflow of exuberance. Gamely, she posed in the dressing room where the players’ jerseys were neatly hung and displayed against the wall, providing an excellent backdrop for many photo-shots.  She lovingly hugged the glass casing within which sat the Club’s priceless treasure, the much coveted Champions League trophy won in the finals at Istanbul 2005, where Liverpool created one of the most famous comebacks in football history. My sweet and dainty Jenny, sharing the joy with her football-mad husband so that he would never have to walk alone.

But last Tuesday, with some time to kill before my meeting, I walked alone over the cobbled streets of Liverpool.

Outside the St George’s Hall around a cluster of old Victorian buildings, stood a cast bronze barrel-like structure about 7 feet tall, with bouquets of flowers strewn on the pavement all around it.  It turned out to be a monument to commemorate the Hillsborough disaster some 27 years ago when 96 Liverpool fans were killed. I took a few photographs for keepsake. The anniversary of the disaster was just two days apart of Jenny’s passing on date. All around the city is bathed in brilliant sunshine, rare for the English weather in the advent of spring. But the sunshine failed to brighten the mood. And the Hillsborough disaster monument was just another sombre reminder that death is always an inevitable part of life.  Unpredictable and heart-wrenching for the ones left behind.

The Hillsborough disaster monument in Liverpool city centre

The next day I caught the early train to Glasgow. There was a change of train at Preston. The rest of the journey was in first class seats on the new Virgin coaches. The train company knew how to pamper its passengers.  I ordered an egg Benedictine even as I was not hungry and started to regret after stuffing in the first egg as I felt the agony of over-eating. Still, I finished most of the meal just so as not to be seen as being a food-waster. Travelling first class, and the day before for my flight to the UK, on business class on our national carrier I felt undeservedly privileged. The business class seat could fold itself into a flat bed allowing passengers to stretch out and sleep with reasonable comfort. But I lied in the darkness of the half-empty cabin for much of the 13 hour flight without sleeping a wink. I rarely could sleep on flights but unlike coping with the discomfort of economy class seating, this first time experience of lying horizontally did not help either. Half-awake in the dark, I spent much of the flight reminiscing about my past life with my dearest departed wife. It was an opportune time to recollect the memories to keep them fresh.

The bathroom  glass walls offers limited privacy.

In Glasgow, I checked into the CitizenM hotel at Renfrew Street. On the website, when I did the booking, the hotel had claimed to offer its guests with an “innovative hotel experience”.  Thus far, It is hard to argue with that. Stepping into the hotel lobby I struggled to orientate myself in search of the check-in counter. Instead there was an array of self-servicing terminals for a DIY check-in.  That was a first for me. The décor and furnishing around the lobby was visibly chic and modern, with strong colours.  There was a familiar feel of stepping into a designer’s show-room. Even the directional signs were playfully creative and eye-catching. 



The hotel room was particularly small with the king-sized mattress installed wall-to-wall, occupying most of the floor space. The TV, a large flat screen was mounted against one side of the wall above the bed and the windows with its curtain blinds, stretch across the entire width of the room on the adjacent wall. The toilet and shower tray was entirely encased in a stylishly curved wall of frosted glass, from floor to ceiling. The light from within the bath room filtered out to the other side of the room depriving whoever is bathing inside of total privacy as faint images of nakedness would be exposed through the translucent glass. I could not imagine Jenny wanting to ever share this room with me even as we have been married for so many years given her unyielding need to safeguard her modesty.

Weather-wise we could not have chosen a better week to travel to Scotland.  That the British cannot stop talking about the weather is not new to me. But after umpteenth sessions, where each and every one of our meeting hosts repeated ad infinitum about how we (my lady colleague and I) had “brought in the sunshine”, it got somewhat tiresome. Long-haul travelling mortals we were but weather-gods definitely not. We were just plain lucky to have enjoyed Scotland in glorious sunshine instead of the usual grey and cold drizzle the locals are so used to.

There would be so much I could share with Jenny on my travel experience if only she could be there to greet me when I return home. She would be full of envy to hear of the perks I got treated to. But she would have been very happy for me too.

Glaswegians basking and enjoying the brilliant sunshine, while it lasts

 

My first year, without you

Honey Dearest,

It’s been a year, finally. This first year after your passing on. Leaving me a widower and the children without their mother.

But did I say “finally”? Is this first anniversary so highly anticipated? It’s not one for celebration.

In truth, I have been counting each day since your passing on and each day brings me closer to this eventual date – 17^th of April, the day the world caved in for me and the kids.

Looking back, this year, surely must have been the longest in my life. Yet I remember the events so well. Your last days in the hospital. The children and I by your bedside, harbouring faint hopes for a miracle recovery to happen. And that surreal feeling of numbness as I talked to the undertakers for your funeral arrangements. Stroking your cheeks one last time as you lay in your casket, feeling the waxy half-likeness of your face and wondering how even in death, you still look so beautiful to me. And the crushing moment when your casket was slowly driven into the furnace.  These images remain vividly engraved in my mind as if they took place just weeks ago.

It might sound creepy, knowing that I actually count the days through your first year. At some point I know I should just it give up. It sounds like such a mental burden. But each day without you has been an uphill struggle. The day’s agenda might differ but one thing stays the same. Missing you. And sometimes half-wondering how life would have been if you are still alive, by my side.  My mind plays tricks and games, wandering back a lot.

Getting up each morning, your side of bed, now cold and empty, reminds me of the kind of day that awaits. Another day without you. So each day starts the same as the one before. Regardless of work-days or weekends. And it matters not if I awoke on holidays at faraway places like Bangkok, Perth or Barcelona, where we had ventured to this past year, or in our Villa Verde home. Always, I wake up into a reality that is scarier than the dream I just awoke from.

But I urge and prompt myself to live the day for you. Because I know how much you had wanted to live. To fight and survive. Against the dreaded disease that finally took you down and away from us. Away from all that you held precious.

So, Honey, for me the 366 days of this last leap year has a strange feel. Colours were not as bright. Food tasted blander and it’s nothing to do with the cooking. Music that I once found so uplifting, now sounded melancholic and off-key. Even the silence has a deafening echo around it. There is a stillness in our house that I have not gotten used to. Our house and bedroom which we shared for so long now seems too large, too empty.

But you will be delighted that I am not paralysed and overwhelmed by your loss. I could function well enough. I had dealt with the endless paperwork for deed transfer, insurance claims, credit card cancellations and obtaining the grant of probate.  The kitchen is well stocked with food each week. The household is in good order. Well, most of the time I think. Somewhere from within I found the reserves to help me rise above my sorrows. I do what needs to be done, so life can go one. Losing you was devastating, needless to say. I was dunked into a deep pool of grief. It left a gaping hole torn inside me. But though I am hurt and scarred, I am far from sunk. I guess I could count this as the greatest achievement in my life. But it is not anything I could be proud of.

We had previously casually chatted about the possibility of death separating us and leaving whoever survived the other lost and stranded. We could not foretell the future. But I wonder if in surviving you, I turned out to be the bigger loser. What was sure is I could not imagine what a real loss would feel like. Until now. That sense of loss and hurt is always there, ever present, clinging on like saran wrap. It never leaves me.

It was not that we had never been far apart for long spells of time during our marriage years. In the past I had stayed away from home for several months on overseas work attachments. Once in Northern Ireland and again in Ottawa. But the distances that separated us on those occasions were merely geographical.  Now you are missing everywhere. And permanently. The totality of your loss and absence sometimes terrifies me and I feel stressed and anxious. One year on and I still find it hard to get used to.

I now yearn for you even more than when you were alive. Such is the cruel irony.  How we tend to treasure things more only after losing them. These days I spend long evenings after work, by myself in our bedroom and on weekends strolling, again on my own, in outdoor parks and gardens, to reminiscent on our past life together. I try to recall the times we had shared, from ordinary, plain and banal days to happy occasions and the odd days when we bicker over differences.  We have shared so much between us, raising up three kids and building our home in three different dwellings, progressing from public housing to a larger landed property so there can be more space to grow our family. Thanks to you being so savvy in sniffing out good deals in real estates.

You may say that I now spend more time looking back than looking forward. Am I living in the past? Perhaps.  I do not like to think of the upcoming future. The future is somewhat frightening. My old school-mate had advised against worrying about what is yet to come. Savour the present and be grateful for the day. I try to abide by this wisdom and just focus on the present. Live a day at a time. The future will take care of itself, I suppose. We could never tell what is imminent.

As for work, my morale and motivation is akin to a bouncing yo-yo. One day I would feel so low and was quite sure of packing up and calling quits. Another day, could find me all charged up, vowing that the work engagement was god-sent. It is hard to argue that the distraction offered by work could have saved me from drowning in grief. You have warned me often of not quitting early as work is the best way to keep our minds occupied. I will remember this well.

But this first year has found me doing things I have never done before also. Like starting this blog site for example.

Putting my thoughts in writing allow me a form of emotional release. There is a word to describe this – catharsis.  But I also know how much you value your privacy so you may not sanction all these postings, sharing our life together in public domain. But can you really fault me for keeping this blog? There are many other poor souls out there who have lost their spouses and have similarly set up blog sites to share their grief. I spend many evenings reading their stories. In many ways we are kindred spirits, a sort of a community, united in grief. Our open sharing helped in our healing. A problem shared is a problem halved so they say. And in the past we always have each other to lend a shoulder and share our troubles. But now, there is just this blog site.

So over the past year there have been good days and some not so good ones. But the one constant for each day would be your total absence. And my missing you.

A whole year has passed without you. I think this next year ahead will not change very much. I will welcome each new day. For it brings me closer to you. When we can be together again. And that is the reason for counting, my remaining days without you.

Please wish me a better year ahead, Honey. I love you so much.

  

Dealing with anniversaries...

Jenny’s first death anniversary is fast approaching. Less than 2 weeks away. Somehow for heavy-hearted grieving husbands like me, anniversaries take on a special emotional significance.

In the past I have never dwelled much on anniversaries. Not for my birthday or even for our wedding anniversaries, shameful to say. Those days come and go without much fuss or fanfare. After all we always had each other. But I never envisioned that our days of blissful togetherness would be so numbered. And to run down so quickly.

Grief has a way of turning a despairing widower into a chronically inveterate clock-watcher. Never before have I been so time conscious. I found myself keeping count of each day gone.

And why not?

I was enduring her total absence. It is a strange new existence. Like today, being the 351^st day into this new era of lost coupledom. Of life without her.

I have already accepted that this is all part of the “new normal” for me. And recent dates like 13^th of March reminded me of the day, exactly a year ago when she was hospitalised and never got to return home again. Dates like 21^st of October, when her scan results confirmed her to be the latest cancer statistic and we bade farewell to the carefree halcyon days we had been blessed with for so long, up till then. And dates like 17^th April that is looming near, when she drew her final breath, making her curtain call from the stage of life.  Anniversaries take on a new meaning for the newly bereaved. It sounds sad, but it is part of our new normal.

I am mindful also of a rather huge decision to make with her anniversary looming near. Should I mark the occasion in the obituary section of our national news-paper? It will not be trivial from a cost point of view, granted the increasing prices to take out advertising space in the widely circulated English daily, the only one in our small country.  More so, I was grappling with a lot of what-fors? What would I be trying to prove? Do I really need to tell and show the world I miss her? People who close to me knew that well enough. Those more distant would probably care little and how many would even notice the print? 

But it did not take me long to decide. This is her first anniversary. I could not let it come and go without marking it in print. Shoot me if nobody else cared. I will not stinge on the expense. Jenny would have preferred prudence, but I knew I would regret big-time if I missed putting a notice in the obituaries for her, come that day.

I immediately got down to compose the words for the obituary, to best describe my anguish of losing and missing her over the year.  The passage has to be trim and concise. I realised also that this tribute has to be recorded collectively. I cannot be selfish even as at times, it seemed like I am grieving alone. Our children and her immediate family are also bearing the pain of her loss. And Jenny is also remembered fondly by her many friends and colleagues. The death anniversary notice will include them all.

I typed out the following passage and saved it in a document, along with my favourite picture of her, the one taken at the Blue Mountains in Australia. I am sure that picture will be the one most fitting to use.  Nearer to the date, I will send the document to the newspaper for print. Having decided, I felt more at peace.

It has been a year since you left us

But not a day passes without our hearts aching for you

And missing you, your gentle ways and tender smile, your kindness of heart

A light once so bright, sadly shines no more

But wonderful wife, loving mother and caring daughter and sister that you were,

We will always remember, and you will always be loved,

Forever, you remain, endeared within