Disorder

13.04.07

Ultimately, when we consider all that has happened and your untimely death, we talk of tragedy.

The irony for all of us who knew and loved you is that you were a person who embodied positivity and projected that to others, so there is this real sense of a man who covered his sadness with love and humour - and his his own personal tragedy for so long.

It is clear, when assessing the entirety of your life, that you simply covered up all that pained and troubled you, unwilling to admit what you perceived to be failure or defeat - and you were not willing or able to cede the fantasy of a happy family life, which I now know from the conversations I had with some of your friends, is what you most hankered after.

Your life was very marked by family and what that meant to you.Your own childhood was a happy one and you continued to enjoy a very close and special relationship with your sisters and your parents- and so you assumed that by marrying, you would find the same happiness and stability, and of course have your own family.

However, you soon realised, as you confided in me many times, that your choice had been somewhat hasty. Within a year of marrying, you began to feel you had made a mistake. You broached the subject many times, but always had reassurances that things would change, but they never did. Your ideal of having children young was also thwarted, and try as you might, you could never really get a resolution: endless reasons associated with health problems, but no real desire to change them. And you kept it quiet. You bought in to this idea that marriage was about control and doing right by everybody - but you forgot yourself!

As Dorothy Parker observed it isn't the tragedies that kill us, it is the messes! And you, sweet man, believed you were responsible for this terrible mess. In reality, that wasn't the case at all. Your wife had told you, that once her mother passed on, things would be different. And in her desperate attempts to get you to return, she spoke of how she would change,do more around the house and spend less time with her family. You had bought that one before and knew that it was an empty promise - you felt that your marriage had been populated by your wife's family, who took precedence, your wife, latterly P and then you. Sadly, you saw this as entirely your responsibility, and were frustrated in your attempts to discuss this before your departure. My own take on this was that all relationships and their subsequent breakdown are the work, or the lack of work by two people, so to carry the burden of blame alone was ridiculous.

But, by your own admission, you had been the main provider,organiser, child carer and thinker in the marriage, so to leave that pained you as you felt a great responsibility. I reminded you that once a person is over 18, they are no longer a child, and therefore, in theory, there was only one person to feel responsibility for.

The tragedy here is that you saw the mess as too great to fix. And you allowed yourself to fall for every one-liner charged with emotion and blackmail. Your own fantasy had failed you, and you assumed that failure as your own. Which it wasn't. As Mrs Parker also said, love is a two way street.

And the traffic only moved in one direction for you.