Joy is not made to be a crumb.

TW: death, cardiac arrest, CPR. An edited and expanded repost from my Instagram.

This time of year isn’t easy for me.

Two years ago last week, Mike went into hospital with difficulty breathing.

It had been happening on and off for months – he’d have a bad bout, it would settle down. He’d had some tests. They thought it was a kind of reflux and prescribed some medication which seemed to help. He’d spoken to a doctor (on the phone, because of Covid) half a dozen times – our GP, another GP at the surgery, the out of hours GP. Maybe it was worsening asthma, they said, or a chest infection. Have some antibiotics. Take your inhaler more. Often, one of those things settled it. But not this time. This time it was so bad that at one point he couldn’t make it up the stairs. I called an ambulance – the second time we’d done so that year. Like the first time, they checked him out and said there was nothing that they could see, he seemed okay, the numbers were fine, but if he wanted they would take him in. The first time we had said no, it was okay, but this time we said actually, I think maybe, yeah. So he went.

Covid meant I couldn’t go with him but the paramedics weren’t that worried so I tried not to be either. I got a bit scared when he stopped replying to my messages but figured he had just fallen asleep, so I tried (and failed) to get some sleep myself.

At 4.30am my phone rang. It was a doctor at the hospital. He told me that Mike was very sick and they were going to have to put him into a coma and put him on a ventilator because he could no longer breathe on his own.

I didn’t understand. I couldn’t understand. How it could have gone from him persuading the paramedics to take him in even though everything looked normal, wandering out to the ambulance with his Kindle and headphones, to this? This phone call with this grave-voiced doctor – who said that he was sorry and they were going to do everything they could to help Mike, but I needed to understand that his condition was very serious, and was there anyone who could come and be with me?

I asked him to put the phone to Mike’s ear so I could talk to him. I don’t really remember what I said – that I loved him, that he would be okay, that I would be there when he woke up. Something like that. To be honest I don’t know now if the doctor even took him the phone – probably he didn’t, probably I was talking to the empty air. And afterwards I begged the doctor not to let him die. I told him what a wonderful person Mike was and said that we needed him and to please, please not let him die. He said nothing, and I thought… oh. Oh.

After he hung up the phone I didn’t know what to do. It was 5am, nobody was awake. Lyla was asleep in the room next to me. And nobody was allowed to go and see Mike for 12 hours until they knew it wasn’t Covid. So there was no point phoning anyone. It wouldn’t do any good and they would know soon enough.

So I didn’t. I sat alone and sobbed and prayed — just saying “please God, please God” over and over again until it was morning.

The rest of the day is essentially completely lost to me. I know at some point somebody took Lyla to nursery. I have no idea if I got her up and dressed – I guess I must have? Or my sister-in-law had already arrived by that point, and she did it? I honestly don’t remember. I remember sitting watching the clock, waiting until we were allowed to go in. Praying for a phone call, but also praying it wouldn’t ring. Steph and I saying over and over again, if he could only wake up, just once, just for a day, just so we can tell him how we feel. Just so we can see him one more time. It was the worst day of my life.

And Mike DID wake up. He did. Despite everything they said, how bleak it all looked, he opened his eyes and this time when they held the phone up I know that he heard me – he couldn’t speak, but the intensive care nurse said “he’s giving you a thumbs up!” and I knew that was my Mikey, a thumbs up and a cheeky wink even in the worst of times.

And he kept getting stronger and better and more himself. Soon I got to talk to him every day – and then to see him, to hold his hand, and we started to believe, despite everything, that he was going to be okay and would come home again.

By that stage it was October. Halloween month. Anyone who knew Mike will remember how much he loved Halloween. Our first Halloween together he had to work in the evening, and he was so disappointed that we couldn’t do anything. While he was at work I went out and bought piles of cheap decorations – fake cobwebs, a cauldron, pumpkin lanterns, bunting, the works – and decorated our lounge and threw a little surprise party for two when he got home later that night. He was absolutely over the moon, grinning like a kid, that big beamy smile that made me first fall in love with him. And so when he was due to come home from hospital in early October I thought… I’ll decorate for him, so that everything will look nice for him coming home, and he’ll be happy.

I don’t remember much from that month he was in hospital, to be honest, but I vividly remember decorating. I remember writing “Halloween with The Warings” on the little chalkboard door sign we have and feeling so thankful that we were still The Warings, against all odds. I had the most profound sense of gratitude – and of hope.

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Mike didn’t make it to Halloween.

He died three days before, at home, and that evening I sat in our living room surrounded by the decorations I’d put up for him and stared at them blankly, wondering how I could ever had had such hope. What a fool.

I couldn’t stand to look at them. As soon as my brother and sister-in-law arrived I begged them to help me get rid of them.

Taking them down and packing them away was one of the hardest things I had ever done.

I didn’t put them up last year. I didn’t want to think about Halloween beyond what I had to do for Lyla’s sake. I didn’t even want to celebrate autumn, usually my favourite season. I didn’t have a pumpkin spice latte on the first of September like Mike and I always did. I didn’t go into Belfast to see the trees surrounding the Lanyon Building turning red and orange and gold. I didn’t watch You’ve Got Mail, or walk in the woods, or do any of the things Mike and I always would have done. I coped with so many other things throughout that year, and tried so hard to mark other occasions as normal: because of Lyla, and because I knew it’s what Mike would have wanted. But I just couldn’t do Halloween, or autumn. I couldn’t be reminded of that month. I thought that maybe I would never be able to again.

But this year, there’s… something.

A sense, maybe, of the gratitude I felt when I was putting them up two years ago. Even a little hint of the hope.

And so last week I put them up again. I filled our new home with foliage and scented candles and warm lights. I went with my neighbour to get a pumpkin spice latte. And I wrote a new message on the lightbox Mike bought me – taken from a poem by the wonderful Mary Oliver that I have loved for many years:

“If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.”

Don’t Hesitate by Mary Oliver

This year, I have chosen to suck the marrow of that joy from every single moment that I can. I spent the summer travelling, swimming in the sea, visiting London, laughing and talking with friends, throwing myself into art and books and music and new friendships with abandon. And why should autumn be any different? Why shouldn’t I embrace all those things that have always brought me so much pleasure? The things that Mike and I shared and found so much happiness in?

And so when I had finished decorating, I sat on the sofa and thought about Mike. I pictured his about the way his face lit up when he got home on both of those occasions – that first Halloween we spent together, and the day he came home from hospital – and he realised I’d decorated for him. The sheer little-boy delight. The love. The joy, which for Mike was never, ever a crumb.

Here’s to you, Mikey. Happy autumn. I love you, forever.