Day 17 / 18 of Grief: Teeth, Shit Men and Anger

This is dated the 10th of June, by the way, in case I ever want a record of when I was saying this.

I, I can’t get the image out of my head of when he was lying there, when he was put into the small room and the blue sheet that they put over his body.

That was his body after he’d been dragged out of the small bathroom and brought into the hall, where they must have tried CPR on him three times. I’d only been able to touch his body with my finger through the door before that. We had been downstairs and they told us we could go up and see him.

And he was there. He was just lying there like he was sleeping.

But his, his nose, it was bruised, and his eyes were bruised because his nose was bruised. And his head was purple, this veiny kind of shade.

Not like my mother’s when she died, where she just looked peaceful and looked like she was sleeping. His looked like there was a form of trauma that had happened to the body. Not, not physical, you know, just like the whole body, just these colours on him.

And there he was. It was just him.

And I was just staring at him, and it was his eyes, his nose, the shape of his head.

When I stood at the bottom of the bed, I looked up and I looked at his teeth. They were the teeth he got fixed because his parents neglected to fix them when he was young, and he spent years really hiding them, hiding his smile in his mouth because he didn’t want people to see.

And then we got them fixed when we had the money, and he was planning on getting them properly fixed this time. One of those metal things in the jaw, where they screw the teeth into. He kept putting it off, and I think part of him was probably frightened by the idea of doing it. I was. It sounded like an ordeal. He never managed to get it started.

I feel so angry, not at him, but at myself. I just wish I’d bugged him more to get himself checked.

But I know he was happy here, with us. He had a great life. I know he would think that.

I’m just living this moment where I’m dreadfully, always worrying that he was in pain, or he called out to me and I didn’t hear him. He didn’t fucking deserve to die like that.

All the shit men we have met or have known over the years. All the fucking wasters, the dickheads, the violent fucking wife beaters, the fucking ones who mess other peoples lives and then they go to the next one, forgetting about their kids and have no responsibility.

They live on.

They always do.

Today has been a really hard, hard day for some reason.

And I’m keeping busy. I’m keeping busy. And I need to get working.

I just try not to worry, and I try to keep it out of my head because it’s just not going to lead to anything good. If I worry, Daniel will worry. Then I’ll worry. And then I’ll probably cause myself a seizure or something, like, fuck.

So I have to live it.

This is one of the darker days. That’s all I can think of saying.

I’ve actually done quite well, considering.

Considering.

Day 18

Then I wrote this the following morning...

We took CBD jellies and half a diazepam to try to help us relax because we were both upset. We went to bed early, and then Daniel slept in beside me.

And I’m just…

We never got to say goodbye.

I never got to tell him how proud we were of him, how much we loved him. He never knew how much we loved him.

I don’t think I’d be who I am if it hadn’t been for him.

I needed someone when I was 20. I needed somebody who was just like me. Who was also, slightly, I didn’t know it at the time, but he was like a broken soul as well.

And I kind of think we healed each other.

And I keep getting so angry.

I’m so angry.

It’s like I hit the fucking jackpot with him. Over a period of 30 years, I had a man who was considerate, who thought about me, who worried about me, who was loyal to me, who never hurt me, who shared my interests.

You just don’t get that. You just don’t get that lucky in life.

I don’t know if he was actually lucky getting me, but I was lucky getting him.

I never forced him to change. Two friends tell me that’s probably why I was hated by his family, because I didn’t push him into doing something they wanted. Which would have been him being a doctor, or some high job that they could reap the social rewards of. They could live off the fame.

I just wish he’d done more with his art. Not that he changed his career. Just bits and pieces of his art. And he was brilliant. He was so, so brilliant at art. He did so well.

I’m really angry that he died and nobody was there to tell him how much he was loved, how much he was needed, how he was so important.

I’m just so angry he was taken from us so fucking cruelly.

Not one fucking bit of a chance. Not one fucking window of opportunity that he could survive.

Fucking dead and gone within a second.

And I know that’s good because it means he didn’t suffer pain, or he didn’t have any anguish.

But still, to not be there. To not be there with him.

To not be there if he was suffering in moments of just stress or discomfort.

I don’t think I’ll ever get over that. But I hope I stop beating myself up about it.