Dear Mikey,
It’s been a while since I’ve written here. Not for any reason, really. Actually, no – there is a reason. This has been the most jumbled month of grieving for me so far. Some days I’ve been okay – my sadness tempered with a gratitude for having had you, for the beautiful things you brought into my life, for still getting to be here to experience them. And some days I’ve been right back to the early days of losing you – flashback upon flashback, desperation, loneliness, utter despair. Nothing stays long enough for me to get it down on paper, though. Nothing is fixed. It’s chaotic inside my head and there’s nobody here to quiet it. No YOU here to quiet it.
When I was scared, or sad, or anxious, or afraid, you would hold me. You would pull me close to you – in bed, on the sofa – and hold me. You would kiss the top of my head and lace your fingers through mine and stroke my shoulder, my back. And you would talk it through with me. You would let me pour out the jumble of thoughts that were plaguing me and then we would talk about it. And you, with your calm stillness, your quiet confidence, your unwavering love – you would bring me back to a steadiness, a certainty. The knowledge that despite anything else that was happening, you were here and you weren’t going anywhere. That promise which you made me so many times.
In the early days, my fear was that you would leave me. You would realise that you were too good for me and go somewhere else, for something better. But that was replaced. Our love grew more and more solid, more real, more determined, and then I knew that the only way you would ever leave me would be unwillingly. And you stopped having to promise me that you weren’t going anywhere because I knew it. I felt it in everything you did, in the way you looked at me, the way you held me, the way you lived your life with me and for me.
But then you got sick. You got sick, and we were so close to losing you, and when you came back to us and I saw you again, you took my hand and we cried and you whispered that you had thought you would never see me and Lyla again. And I promised you that you weren’t going anywhere. And you promised me the same back.
God, I wish we could have kept those promises. I think it’s the only promise we ever made to each other that we didn’t get to keep. We tried, didn’t we? We tried so hard. You fought so hard to get out of hospital and then when I found you I fought so hard to bring you back. And I’ll never forgive myself for not being able to. No matter how many times I’m told it wasn’t my fault. I can’t forgive myself because I broke my promise.
This has been a hard month. I’m not sleeping, which is new. It’s 2am now and I know sleep is a long while away yet. I’m writing here because if I don’t I’ll be alone in the dark and that’s when the flashbacks start. They’re so awful I can’t even share them with anyone, they’re just imprinted on my brain and mine alone forever, these horrible burned-in images that won’t leave me alone, not ever. I hate them.
I hate them, and I hate that this is my life now. Everything else is good – our beautiful family and friends, our wonderful home, our amazing, wonderful, brilliant little girl. But it’s all missing YOU. The glue that held my life together. The gilding. The shine has gone from my life and as the weeks go on all that happens is I come to realise more and more that it’s not coming back. And yes, I have moments of joy – when Lyla tells me I’m “the best Mummy ever”, when I talk with Becca, when Jonny and Heather and I watch Taskmaster and laugh until we’re giddy – I have those and I’m so grateful for them. But you’re still not there. You, beautiful you, your smile and your voice and your hands and your laughter and your love. It’s gone. And I’ll never know anything like it again.
I think about how it was when we first met. That rightness, that certainty, that sudden realisation that everything in my life had been leading up to meeting you and loving you. And knowing without having to ask that you felt the same. I can’t believe I’ll ever get that again. That magical, once-in-a-lifetime experience of being exactly where I should be at exactly the right time. A small, quiet miracle.
Remember our last trip to London? We sat in Pret and drank coffee and knew that the world was about to change, that a pandemic was coming and it would be the last time for a while that we’d get to walk around the city we loved and see theatre and be Mike and Ems, in our place. We couldn’t have had any idea then that this would happen, that a year later I would be sitting here a widow, with your beautiful light gone from the world. That our lives would change more than anyone’s.
I miss you. I miss you. I think about you all the time, I see things I want to tell you and send to you. Things I want you to know, so very badly. Julia talking about shark movies. The Frasier reboot. Lyla learning how to do a forward roll. A photo of Bill at Tolworth Tower. Niamh choosing her A-Levels. Your dad turning 84. Things, big and small, that you should be here for. That you deserve to be here for.
I can’t make sense of it. And there’s a comfort in knowing that, I suppose – in knowing that I’ll never make sense of you being gone, so in a way I don’t even have to try. The hope that somehow, in another life, I will understand. That you’re there waiting for me, that you already know why this happened, that you can see my life unfolding in front of you like a book and you know where I will go and what I will do and how it will lead me back to you eventually. That in the meantime my only job is to keep our daughter safe and loved and well. That nothing else really matters. That somehow, I will learn how to be happy without you, until the day comes that I can be happy with you. Some days that seems impossible. But I know it’s what you would want, and I’m trying. I’m trying so, so hard. For you, For Lyla. For me.
Dave played this song the other day. I had never heard it before. But it is how I want to end this letter, because it is everything that I feel.
You left in autumn
The leaves were turning
I walked down roads of orange and gold
I saw your sweet smile
I heard your laughter
You’re still here beside me
Everyday
‘Cause I know you by heart
I love you, Mikey. I miss you. I love you. I love you.
Your Ems 💖
Widow All At Sea 