Those who remain

The last 14 months have seen me explore and share publicly my thoughts, feelings and emotions towards my Mum more than I ever have in the 25 years I have been alive. I have written and said her eulogy, written a blog for this charity, journaled countless of messages and reflections – all centred around her and all of the things that were left unsaid. I never got the chance to have a final conversation with her – for her to truly hear and respond to all that I am grateful for. I will never run out of things to say about her, as is the same for anyone who has lost a loved one. I always think about her work; she was a carer, and a dinner lady. I don’t know this for a fact, but those jobs are always moving – people come and go but the work never stops. As a teacher, we have an end of term reception where the students have gone, and those who are leaving get a chance to pay tribute to those who have enriched their lives, as well as hear some tributes from a line manager or a friendly colleague. Mum worked at Fairfield Hospital until it closed in 1999, so after 20 years there, I don’t think she ever got the chance to have that moment where people paid tribute to her. To make my point clearer, Mum, just like so many people who have passed, was not famous, was not a well-known Doctor, not an actor, not widely known beyond Letchworth. This means the tributes to her are limited to Facebook posts and comments the day she died and her funeral, and my words. It has left me with a deep commitment to continue writing and continue paying tribute to Mum, but it has also exposed something else to me. 

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Emily Blunt were being interviewed by Dujon Anderson for their recent film The Smashing Machine. Anderson brought up the 15-minute standing ovation the film received at the Cannes film festival. Anderson went onto say that it was well deserved, and then said a quote that has sat with me ever since I heard it: 

‘Not enough times are flowers given to people until they pass away, so I’m gonna give you guys your flowers right now and say you guys are amazing’. 

This is just so true and is something I have been reflecting on a lot recently. I have truly dived into as much content around grief in the last year and a half and one of the major commonalities I have seen is how people talk about those who remain. It might be ‘Dad is still here, and he’s amazing’ and it is simply left at that. I am in no way passing judgement on people for not posting heartfelt tributes for their entire families when going through grief, as I know it is so important to channel all emotions and feelings into that grief and the relationship with the one who we have lost. But it has made me want to explore, the complications, nuances, and ultimately love of those who remain. 

I wrote in my first blog that me, my Dad, my Grandma, my Brother, and my Uncle now have to continue life without the magnetic presence Mum provided. I don’t think I realised, even a year on, how profoundly true that quote is. She truly was the glue that held us all together and kept the family ticking. Just to be clear, we are very fortunate in that we were not and are still not a dysfunctional family. We had our challenges, but I know how lucky I am to have been raised in a home full of support and love. I now make no apologies in always being a Mummy’s boy, but something that this has meant is now navigating a new relationship with my Dad, just like he needs to navigate a new relationship with me. The same can be applied to all family; we are missing the person who always remembered the small details and the organiser. This will not look or feel the same for everyone, I can only speak for my experience as a man who has lost his Mum at the age of 24, and from my Dad’s perspective as a man who has lost his wife of 30 years at the age of 61. 

It feels very typical that in a dynamic like my family had, the mother picks up the emotional work: the big talks, knowing what to say, the poignant advice, the support about how to navigate true life situations such as arguments, break ups, work drama amongst many other things. Whilst the Dad gives more practical ‘life advice’: should you change jobs, where should you live, how much is this going to cost and so on and so forth. This was definitely the case in my family, and now, with Mum gone, that is a huge gap that becomes very unclear on how to fill. Me and Dad love each other, but it is an unspoken love; we don’t say it every day, we don’t hug, we give simple Happy Birthday messages and buy each other a pint as a sign of gratitude and good will. 

I moved back in with my Dad a year after Mum passed away and this is where these challenges became more apparent. It was an incredibly difficult experience moving back to somewhere that was so full of memories of her, but that was something he had been contending for the last year. Also, me and him had never lived together, just us two before. I had been doing alright, it was the 6-week summer holidays, and I was keeping active, however after a few weeks it became incredibly difficult being back there. I want to explore this in further detail a different time; but the soft triggers of being in this house: now needing to worry about what’s for dinner, the silence in the mornings as Magic Radio is not playing in the morning whilst we’re eating breakfast, not hearing the sounds of her tiktok as she refused to buy headphones and couldn’t find the volume button. This reared its head when me and Dad were talking about something quite menial like my upcoming daily commute to London. For some reason, it just triggered me how normal this is going to become – me going into London everyday, and everyday coming back to this house. ‘Same house, different home’ is what I called it. I broke down in tears and Dad simply didn’t know how to react other than say it’ll be alright. He did continue to check in on me every hour after we’d spoke. However, I had never broken down in front of just him before, Mum had always been there. The last time I did in front of Mum, I’ll always remember her 5’2 frame holding me as tight as she could as I was sat slumped over, looking down, but feeling the full force of her protection. Dad simply didn’t know how to respond to this and, to be clear, I don’t hold this against him – Grandad (his Dad) was far more of a handshake over a hug kind of person and, as I have already said – this wasn’t our established relationship for the last 25 years, so where do we go from here? 

I felt myself at a crossroads, sometime moved on and I started to feel a sense of resentment that he didn’t just think to hug me. ‘Mum just knew to do it, how hard is it?’ But I never said any of this to him as it was odd for me as well. I wasn’t aware of what I needed or how to communicate it. Inevitably, going through grief brings episodes like this more often than not. It had been a very long term at work, evenings were a lot darker and my resilience was being tested massively. I had a particularly hard day, and Dad was sat on the sofa when I got in. We had a talk about what had happened, he listened, and he gave me some genuinely really useful advice, but I was still crying and could feel myself stifling it as much as I could. But this time I decided to do something differently; I moved next to him and asked for a hug. He responded in typical fashion: ‘I’m not much of a hugger’, but I didn’t care. I put my head on his shoulder and absolutely bellowed. It had been something that had been building up for some time, and it felt like such a release to be able to be vulnerable. I will say, I am 6’3 and he is 6’2 now, I would love to see the visual of the two of us on the sofa with this happening. 

The point I am trying to make is: I knew I needed emotional support, and I couldn’t start to resent him for not giving it how I want because that simply isn’t fair. That interaction showed me how important it is for me to ask and to be explicit with him on how I need support, even if it is just a hug. This is one of many different issues that could be explored, and me and Dad by no means have it cracked – this will be a lifelong mission of navigating life without Mum. Our relationship changed the second Mum collapsed, 14 months on, we are realising the different ways our relationship is changing, and how we can and can’t support each other / replicate the sort of support Mum used to give. 

The thing that I do want to make abundantly clear though when it comes to Dad, and returns me to the beginning of this blog, is I’d be absolutely nowhere if it wasn’t for him. When Mum died, it was so sudden and the compliment I heard more than I expected was ‘I can’t believe how well you’re coping with this’. I spoke about her, was very practical, didn’t cry whenever it came up, returned to work, spoke at her funeral and many other things. I was able to be the strong young adult who had been through this trauma because of the foundations laid by my Dad. 

He took care of everything, her documents, her phone, bank accounts, organising and payment of the funeral, he didn’t let me touch a thing. He very well could have seen it as his duty as a Dad, but I’ll never forget the fact that he allowed me to simply be the boy who lost his mum too soon, instead of the young man who needs to take on different tasks. He continues to encourage me to be young, see friends, book holidays, book races. He has given me such a sense of calmness through this time that is so underrated, yet so essential. Dad has also been open and listened. Men born in the early 60s tend to be incredibly set in their ways, whether it’s encouraging him to speak to others about how he is feeling, speak to me about my feelings or his grief; he has never turned it down or made me feel small for suggesting something. He made very clear when I moved back in with him, that he didn’t want me to feel burdened or feel any different and truly wanted me to live as 24/25-year-old. This ‘quarter life’ age and phase of life is such a weird one. People around me are either changing careers, having kids, getting married or still where they were when they were 18. It is not quite so set-in stone anymore that 25 automatically makes you aware of how to deal and process life’s many difficult situations. The patience he has shown me during this time is astounding. I have had and shown moments of frustrations and have taken it out on him unfairly; he has always been able to recognise this instead of meeting fire with fire. I will always have an enormous debt of gratitude to Dad for giving me the headspace and time to still live life, as much as possible, as I was meant too. 

I don’t know if there is truly a tidy way to tie this one up, but all I know is this. Dad, thank you. The patience you have shown me, when also dealing with your life being turned upside down is something I haven’t got the adequate words for. I know you are not a man of pleasantries or ‘soppiness’ as you would say, but just as I want people to know how much Mum means to me, it needs to be clear that you mean the absolute world to me. Thank you for being my biggest supporter and for taking on the emotional blanket that Mum left behind. We will never have this completely cracked but thank you for working it out and navigating this with me. 

I love you,

Nat