Departures and Arrivals

01.03.07

I arrived home today and you had gone. You have left us and you are never coming back.

You took your own life at some time on Monday 26th February 2007. You were 43 years old. Much too young to give up on all this. And to give up on us – and life.

We have to continue without you; it seems an impossible task.

I spoke to you shortly before you died – we can never know the precise time of your death – but I spoke to you at midnight on Sunday 25th for half an hour or so and you were pronounced dead on Monday evening at 11.45 pm - just twelve hours later.

The last thing you said to me is that you loved me very much and that you missed me. I told you I loved you and would see you in London on Saturday. I never heard your voice again. And I never will.

You left a note in which you asked us to forgive you – to me, your two sisters and your son. You told us how much you loved us and how much we meant to you – and about your feelings of helplessness; how you didn’t believe that you did anything but infect all you touched and how you were not worthy of us. How so very wrong you were sweet man.

Of course, we are all devastated. I cannot even begin to explain to you how we feel. The sense of loss is absolute and never ending. To imagine my life without you is impossible. To think that I will never see you, touch you, share my space with you, kiss you, hold you, and wrap myself around you is unthinkable. I know that I have not accepted your departure; all I want is for you to come back to me. Walk through the door, smile at me and open a few cupboard doors at random as you so frequently did, forgetting to close them as you usually do. And I will remind you to close them. As usual.

I have no idea where you are. I have tried to invoke your spirit and you don’t come to me. I want to find solace with you, even if it is only in my dreams. I want to know that you are finally at peace from the obvious torment you felt. I don’t doubt that you loved me. You told me this every single day of your life and I was so glad to hear it. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world. And I love you more than anything else. More than all the shoes in the world and all the 4-0 victories Charlton could ever muster!
Since you left us, I have thought about you constantly. I am finding it hard to conjure up a picture of you in my head – the irony of it. The harder I try, the more impossible it seems. You have slipped into my subconscious I believe, resting from the myriad of thoughts which rise in the slipstream of my brain. And I cannot retrieve you.

I want to picture you as you leant in to kiss me so many times before. I want to see you as I always did with a beautiful smile that lit up the room to its farthest corners. I want to feel you arms enfold me as they did so often when we were together. I want to feel you lying beside me, wrapped around me with your head resting in the crook of my neck, squeezing me so tight that I had to ask you to loosen your grip. I just want you John, I want you to come back to me and help me wipe away these tears that catch me unawares and leave me in contortions of sadness and grief. You asked me not to mourn you John – well you don’t get to choose on that score. Sorry special man, but you surrendered that right when you failed to say goodbye. I wanted to say “learn to live with it!”, but I am not sure that is appropriate in the circumstances – still, no doubt you will see the funny side, won’t you?

I want to wake up and believe for the first 10 seconds of the day that you are still here – just a phone call or text away. I want not to hear a song on the radio and cry because it reminds me of you. I want you to still be here and I know you will never be.