Things what I writ

I sometimes write nonsense about things to try and sound clever

amen to that

February 8, 2008

couldn’t think of a better title although I’ve had 3 weeks to come up with something so it seems appropriate that actually someone else should provide the inspiration when I can’t quite put my finger on it thanks. my dad died.

everything was carefully crafted in the end and none such a production would have done finer gathered in the woodlands to say goodbye just as was planned as there was a long painful time to plan it doesn’t take you slowly. cancer. there was a peculiar grace in which the last breaths of life came from his body and he slept painlessly for the first time in many months and that weight of life lifted from his shoulders just a strange soft shuddering in his veins which I had never seen before shall never see again we just said goodbye. I quietly delivered the last messages I had carried through corridors upon corridors just as the light was fading but barely spoken so that I don’t know that I even heard myself speak and then we were gone just as was he.

there’s no joke in the last paragraph

living/dead

December 1, 2006

The man over the road who runs the pub dropped dead the other day. 43 years old. I just saw the funeral party drive past as a CityCare leaf-sucker winds his way up and down the path outside our house, waving on terrified pedestrians. Everyone is arriving for the wake. They look pretty smart in their black suits. Some of them are quite enjoying it, as they nip into M&Ms to get a few more fags, while others can’t quite let go, and are gathering by the car park, not quite sure what they are supposed to do next. The black Mercedes is leaving. It’s reversing into everybody who’s just come down from the cathedral.

Then they’ve all gone. Except for the few who outlived him and don’t understand why, who are slowly being aided down the road, walking sticks lightly poking the leaves that haven’t been sucked yet.

It looks like Jim has revised his priorities. I just got off the phone to someone who’s working hours at Sun are killing them. The leaf sucker is doing another run across the front of the Black Horse. He’s very good at it. I’ll read Karl Minns later and everything will be alright. I don’t overdo anything. I’m not even here half the time.

birth and death

September 12, 2005

we have some good friends that we first got together with at our pre-natal classes in Guildford, when a small group of slightly anxious 20-something couples met up in the living room of a slightly insipid 40-something facilitator, all of us wondering what on earth was going to happen to our lives. most of us fell neatly into the middle class and comfortable category, who are looking to do the right thing in a responsible and earnest way for our soon-to-be children. typical NCT cases. throughout those classes and following the births and for the 8 or so years after, we’ve all remained close and shared those life changing experiences. our family and our friends family follow pretty similar paths – we both now have 3 children 8 and under, we’re finally getting our home and schooling just how we like it, we’ve worked hard to get our houses in order and we struggle with those logistics of childcare, full-time employment and long school holidays. the dads work in IT. the mums work in the public sector. our 30-something lives are happy and warm.

at least, they were

on saturday, I had the kids while my wife was working on a special opening of one of the museums she works for. I took them into town and we met up with mum in the castle gardens, had our lunch in the sunshine and we wondered around doing saturday things until it was time to head home and think about tea.

on saturday, my friend got up, got ready, waved goodbye to his wife and 3 lovely children, went off to his beloved football, where he had a heart attack and died

its a simply tragic tale of the shortness of life. it should compel me to question my own mortality and change everything, so that I actually live every day. I probably will. but right now I’m just comprehending the awfulness of a mother who can barely speak, but will have to explain to the children why daddy is not coming home again. ever.

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