Fear, Grief and Staying Strong

Two weeks ago it was my birthday, I turned 37 years old, and never have I felt a bigger sense of panic, confusion and utterly incapacitating fear. To be clear, this wasn’t because I was getting old or past my prime, a midlife crisis or a pointed fear of what my life had become. No, it was because it was also a year to the day since my Dad had died, and I had no clue how to deal with this.

My dad wasn’t perfect, in fact he left me and my older brother when I was 5. Through the strength of my mother, we somehow not only managed to maintain a relationship, but also in later years developed a family dynamic many would find odd. By odd I mean that family gatherings became my mum, my dad, both their partners, and the 4 brothers from both sides, all happy, all a family. My Dad was though an inspiration to me and in many ways acted as my social compass. He was also one of my best friends.

Some of my earliest memories of being with dad were when we were outside, on the beach, in the sea or up a mountain. I remember being taken on one of my first rock climbs in the lakes, Little Camonix, I must have been 9 or 10 at the most. About halfway up we reached a point where the rock just drops away, a hundred feet below. To my dad, in his ronhill tracksters, this was a simple step across, to me, with my little legs, it felt like a gaping chasm. I remember thinking, how the hell am I going to get across this, man I was scared. But dad just started talking to me, telling me it would be ok, I could make it, like he’d done with hundreds of kids before. So with a gulp and a little jump I went. And like Dad said, I made it. No sweat. The touch of the hard volcanic rock, the freedom and the sunshine will stay with me forever. I’ve climbed off and on all over the world ever since.

Later, when I was 12 or 13, Dad decided he was going to be in a band, and that I should play in it, so he bought me an electric guitar for Christmas, saying “learn this”. So I did, and for the next 20 odd years we played all over the UK and Ireland, from Scotland to Cornwall, and many dive bars inbetween! One of the highlights must have been when the bingo at civil defenders club was a much bigger draw than us. There were some awesome times, down at the Eclipse in Cornwall, and the trip to Donegal, all in The Van, siting on speakers, and having some…ok, a lot of beers. I remember someone saying that Dad never had a plan, life just happened and he went with it, with a smile on his face. The same could have been said for the band, we never used to practise till we fully had a song, we always liked to be just on the edge, it gave us a certain unpredictability, which when it worked was like magic. When it didn’t, well, we’ll leave those out for now. But when they did work, the gigs were just like having a huge party, and my dad made it feel like everyone in the crowd were part of it, like it was their party.

As I got older we would hang out in the kitchen at family gatherings, cooking together, experimenting, and trying to go one better than each with a new dish. We’d talk about food, wine and music. Music like Springsteen, The Waterboys, The Pogues, Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen and The National. Always bands with lyrics, meaning and stories.

My Dad wanted a better world, and that’s what he tried to help create. One of the things I always admired about my him was his ability to spot genuine people, those who cared, who would do what they say and didn’t bullshit. I guess it was a result of too much time in local authority meetings. It’s something that still sticks with me now.

So when he was diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer my heart broke. But I stayed strong, because the rest of our family, my two younger brothers, and his wife needed me to. I stayed strong, because that is what I do. I’m not a hugely outwardly emotional person in general. My girlfriend has seen me cry twice. Once was at the birth of my daughter after a rather horrendous birth during which I thought I was going to lose them both. The other time was watching an Attenborough programme about a blind baby rhino, don’t ask me why.

3 months later my dad died, I stayed strong. I even stood at his funeral and read a speech. This was part of it.

“I’m going to miss so much of Dad. Mostly I’m going to miss his ability to make the small things; the sunsets, the surfing, banana sandwiches on the beach, cooking with family, the singing, the dancing, the laughing, feel like the big important things. Because that to me was what dad was all about, life, and living. Doing the things every day that made him and those around him happy, and making life better for those he could. And I think there are a lot of people whose life he made better. I know he made mine better. So this isn’t goodbye, because he lives on in the actions of people who knew him.

So that’s what I’m going to try to remember everyday, and pass onto little Indie as best I can, be happy, be kind, live life, just like Grandad Watty. No tears, only joy. “

And I meant every word. So why 10 months later was I crippled by a growing fear of the anniversary date. Why was I unable to look at photos of my dad? Why was I growing more and more distracted every day? Why was I getting more and more irritable? Why did I have less and less energy and want to sleep more and more. Why did I feel real resentment that my family wanted to gather on the day, to give me the birthday I didn’t have the year before?

Through all this, I kept staying strong. I’d smile happily and say I’m fine, when all I wanted to do was to run to the highest hill and scream at the wind.

But staying strong can only last for so long. I realise that now. I’m not going to tell anyone how to deal with grief. I will say that for me to finally start to deal with it, to actually start to grieve I had to stop being strong and to allow myself to be vulnerable. I had to get out all the thoughts I had in my head and had kept to myself. I had to talk and write and sing and cry.

And this started two weeks ago. We gathered as a family and watched a video of charity bike ride me and my brothers undertook in the summer to raise money for Pancreatic Cancer Action. The video was funny and emotional and there was a killer bit with a video my dad had sent to me once when I was climbing a mountain in South America…that definitely helped with the crying. We all cried. And laughed and talked and shared. And I started to heal.

And writing this is part of the process. It’s for me, and no-one else. I don’t think time is a healer, but I think talking is. So I’m going to publish it, because maybe someone will read it, and it might help them to know that grief is hard, that there is no easy way to deal with it, and that it’s ok to not be strong.