Grief Journal.

ANGER

As I sit writing this I realise I am forever intrinsically broken by the very recent passing of my son. I view the world in a very different, more abject way than before. I don’t care very much at all about anything. I know that a huge part of these feelings are grief driven and some of it will pass eventually. Most of this post won’t make very much sense and probably won’t be cohesive or relevent. That doesn’t matter, what matters is that I say words to my journal as I feel the emotions that drive them.

My days are currently taken up with sorting out the services that were connected to my son’s life. The idiocy of bureaucratic officials who must tick every box on the page before they deem that contract ended. My answer to all of them currently is simple, death is final and cancels all contracts completely and without question. I then ask them to put themselves in my shoes and ask themselves how much they would be prepared to put up with if it was their child’s life they were closing down.

Yes they have been ‘sympathetic’, they have chuntered out the correct words for the grief stricken individual they are dealing with. No it does not help one iota that they had the correct words to say in that first instance because then they ask all the stupid questions on their list and I am left wanting to scream at them. It’s not as if there is even any money to be settled either way. I don’t deal well with unnecessary bureaucracy under normal circumstances. Dealing with it right now has left me raw and angry and out of sorts with the world because I don’t care if they never get all their boxes ticked. I don’t give a damn that their computer won’t accept the data because there may be a missing piece of information. I don’t give a fuck if it takes them the rest of their working lives to sort out whatever problems they have with my closing down of accounts that are no longer required.

Why is it so difficult? Well, apparently it’s because my son was not listed as having cancer on their records and that is why he died. He was also very young, just 32. He is listed as having physical disabilities, epilepsy and a host of ‘other’ conditions, but cancer wasn’t one of them. The computer didn’t like the information. It didn’t marry up with their previous records and kept throwing up a glitch and bouncing the hapless idiot back to the previous question. Please confirm cause of death.

I hung up on her. Now, to put this into some perspective, this whole conversation was so that I could have some emergency call equipment collected by them as it is no longer required. Why did they even need to know cause of death? Well, because it was a question on their list and the answer provided was inconsistent with their previously logged information regarding Dan. She even went so far as to say perhaps I should have called them to update them on his condition? Well fucking hell, excuse me for not thinking of updating their system when we had just been told my boy was going to die very soon.
You see, in reality, this was just one of those stupid unthinking moments when a person hasn’t connected their brain to their mouth before speaking. It was a human glitch, and we are all capable of them. Some more than others, but no one is perfect. Perhaps extra training could have prevented it. Perhaps, whoever designed the questions should have taken an aptitude test before being given the job of designing such intrusive questions when a person dies all in order to close down a service that is no longer required.
What this did to me was simple. It triggered three days of harrowing memories of the final days of my son’s death. In the fullness of time I will come to realise I was fortunate enough to have been able to spend almost every single day of my son’s life with him from the moment he was born to the very last breath that he took.

Right now, it kills me that I witnessed my son dying and I could do absolutely nothing to prevent it. All I could do was be there for him right to the very last breath so he knew he was not alone and there was nothing to be afraid of.
But now, I am afraid, I am alone and I am bereft. I have never been so completely lost.

Cancer stole my son and robbed us both of the rest of his life.

I am bitter and angry with the world right now, I have a huge hole ripped in the core of me and I can’t balance on the edges most days and I fall in. The anger at these people actually helps in some odd way because it clears the brain fog, even if it is only temporary. Anger is fast becoming my best friend. It’s the only way I can still feel real.

I miss my boy, I miss his laughter, I miss his sarcasm, his quick quips but more than anything I miss his quiet gentle presence in my life every single minute of every single day and nothing will ever make a damn difference to the size of the hole he left behind.

I know this is grief, I understand the pain I feel is ‘normal’ in these circumstances but there is no normal anymore. Everything is fucked. I don’t care. I just want to hear him speak one more time and I want the world to leave me alone now.