A Cup of Tea and a Diazepam (Day 102)

A cup of tea and a diazepam. This is what is going to get me through today. I’ve been like this since Wednesday. Daniel went back to school yesterday, and it triggered the reality of it. The awfulness. I can’t stop crying. I can’t stop thinking about him.

I can’t remember how he laughed, and I know we laughed loads. We were always laughing at stupid things, funny things, our dry-arsed humour. I can’t remember his laugh, and I know he laughed so much. He found me funny. I could make him hurt from laughing. I would laugh so much at what he said that I would have to stand up.

How am I meant to go on without him?

Maybe he is away. Maybe we are having a trial separation and he forgot to tell me. I am paralysed with grief. I’ve had to cancel a few things today because I just can’t do them. I just can’t. I want to curl up and go to sleep.

I’m currently taking sleeping tablets to help me sleep, antidepressants to stop me from fucking hitting the edges, and diazepam when I really, really need it.

I really, really need it at the moment. Maybe the cup of tea will be the thing that sorts me out.

It makes me so fucking angry. There are so many awful people in the world, and he is the one who isn’t here. He should be here. He is literally missing. There is a gap in this house, and I can’t fill it. I want to be there for Daniel, but I feel like I am barely here for myself.

I can’t even.

Even looking at photos has made me more and more upset. I look back at them and think, that was seven years ago, or two years ago, or however many years ago. I look at myself and think, look at you. Look at how fucking stupid you are. You didn’t realise what was going to happen.

I wish I had known. I wish we had been given one fighting chance. One chance. We didn’t get to say goodbye. We didn’t get to be with him. We didn’t get a chance to turn things around.

We didn’t get any chances. Fuck, they give criminals chances to rehabilitate. Other people get more chances at life. But we weren’t given a chance.He was there, and then he was gone.

I keep thinking back to the 24th. There was nothing. We were just chatting as normal. There were no issues. Nobody was in a bad mood. Everybody was good. There wasn’t an undercurrent of arguments or bad feeling.

We didn’t know.

I don’t know. I don’t know. I wish we had been given a sign.

How can we go on? How do we go on? How do we go on?

Daniel thinks it is going to be really tough from now until Christmas. He is right. It is going to be really, really tough. This week has been awful, but I knew it would be. It is like a delayed response. June, July and August, all the holidays were happening. Then the normal routine started again, except nothing about our lives is normal now.

You can’t be gone. It isn’t possible. It is unimaginable that I am never going to see you again.

I thought I knew pain before. I’ve spent the whole morning crying. My eyes are sore. My head is splitting. The thing to do is have a nap and then try to go outside at some point.

It’s unfair, Darren. It is so fucking unfair. It shouldn’t have been you.

You should still be here in the front room, working and about to ask me what’s for lunch or what time the Tesco order is coming. We should both be looking forward to work finishing so we can have a nice dinner, watch telly and slabber.

That’s what you are meant to be doing.

We are meant to talk about the shows we watched. We are meant to dissect the finale of Furious and how much we loved it. We are meant to talk about all the shit happening in the world and how it is filled with wankers.

If you saw me crying, Darren, you would say, “Ach, Bunser, don’t be getting upset. You don’t need to cry.” You would hug me and let me cry it out.

Except this time, you not being here is the reason I am crying. And you aren’t here to help me stop.

If This Feels Familiar

If you have lost your husband, wife or partner, you can find organisations and other sources of help under Support After the Death of a Spouse or Partner.

If you need to speak to somebody urgently or feel unable to cope, visit Immediate Emotional and Crisis Support.