Who I am.

Grief Trigger Warning

It started off as a normal day.

Nothing out of the usual.

Nothing to indicate that something momentous had passed, creating a gulf between before and then after.

I watched the breakfast news and felt for all those people in Israel.

My habitual routine was followed right up until the point that I couldn’t wake him.

Normality came screaming down around my ankles, tripping me up into a broken heart. Panic and dread became my only companions.

But it…

No, ‘I’ was too late.

He had slipped from my… our lives ever so gently in the night.

Deep asleep, he left us and found the others who love him as much as we do.

Now.

I am no longer who I was.

I’m no longer anyone’s child.

I’m struggling to work out who I am.

I’m trying to do this as my life rolls on, work, parent and partner.

People still be kind, mean, thoughtful or arrogant, in words or right to my face.

No one truly knows how I feel as I free-fall through my grief.

I hide behind, “I’m okay”, or I won't show you how I feel because you don’t know me.

Retold stories mean so much, and thoughtless words burn deep.

But who am I now?

I’m no longer anyone’s child, keeps racing through my thoughts.

I can’t settle or put my mind at ease.

I don’t really know where my mind wants to be.

I’m no longer the person I used to be.

My husband says, give it time.

My children say, it’s okay, you do you.

But I don’t know who I’ll eventually become once I slowly disrobe from my mourning shroud.

I don’t have the answers I usually have.

But I do know! ….No, I feel!

I am their child and always will be.

Everything nurtured in me over a lifetime of love, advice and belief will stand me in good stead during my time of devastation.

They will lead me, when I’m ready, back to who I am!

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I decided not to put this under my normal writing banner of Pandora's Box of Infinite Stories because this piece is about me and the passing of my lovely Dad, not some made-up character or event.

Here's to you, Jonny boy! xo Vanessa