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.

The resilience paradox

Coping with grief — but not life.

Here’s two truths:

1. I’m more resilient than I ever believed I could be.
2. I’m less resilient now than ever.

At first glance, these statements look contradictory. But grievers will know what I mean. Here we are, surviving the absolute worst thing that has ever happened to us. The thing that, when we thought about it before it happened, we swore we would never cope with. I’d die without you, we said, and then it happened and we found that actually, we didn’t die. Maybe we wanted to — maybe we even thought about ways of making it happen. But we didn’t. We kept going. Whatever the reason, we kept going.

That’s resilience. That’s resilience like we never imagined we could have, in most cases. Before Mike died I would have described myself as pretty weak. Yes, I’d had some hard times and got through them, but generally I didn’t see myself as a survivor. I cried easily. I relied on Mike a lot to help me deal with life’s ups and downs. Keeping going in the face of adversity wasn’t really something I considered in my wheelhouse.

But then. Then, the thing I said I could never cope with happened. And I… I coped?

I mean, it was, and continues to be, impossibly hard. Agonisingly so, at times. But I’m still putting one foot in front of the other, doing my job, parenting my child, even occasionally having fun. Which has definitely made me have to reassess my assessment of myself. I’m forced to conclude that I — like all grievers — am more resilient than I could ever have imagined.

HOWEVER.

I am also, to put it bluntly, a complete fucking mess. By which I mean the smallest of things can reduce me to rubble. Financial trouble? Panic attack central. Misbehaviour from Lyla? Complete lack of faith in my parenting ability. Annoying email from a co-worker? Rage like you’ve never seen before. Minor disagreement with a friend? Heartbreak. Etc etc. I frequently find myself face down on the sofa sobbing into a pillow about something which, before Mike died, I would have coped with fine.

I was talking to a friend about it the other day — also a griever, and experiencing the very same thing — and we were musing that perhaps losing our people had permanently damaged our ability to be cope with life’s challenges, somehow reduced the amount of resilience we had. 

But actually I don’t think that’s the case.

I think it’s a bit like— 

(yes, there’s a metaphor coming, bear with me — as Jennifer Aniston so legendarily said, “here comes the science bit — concentrate”…)

 — a bucket.

So the bucket is your resilience, and the liquid inside it is stuff — the general life stuff we all have to deal with. When the liquid overflows, that’s when we fall apart — it’s more stuff than we can cope with.

When we lose someone, there’s more stuff than ever. In those early weeks and months you’re constantly in a state of overflow — grief just pouring out all over the place, and as for anything else, forget it — it doesn’t even make it into the bucket at all. 

After a while of this, your brain realises something: the bucket isn’t big enough.

So it makes it bigger. Big enough to hold your grief. 

But then you’re walking around with this almost-full bucket all the time, and the liquid is occasionally slopping over the side, and flip me, it’s heavy.

So when more stuff comes along — an unpaid bill, a stressful meeting, a recalcitrant child — the bucket simply cannot hold it. And what seems like a small thing causes your bucket to overflow, and you fall apart. To an outsider — your boss, your friends, your mortgage advisor (yeah, this one goes out to you, Thomas) it’s an overreaction — completely freaking out over something that should be mildly irritating at most.

And so despite proving that we’re resilient as fuck, we find ourselves lying face down on our beds crying hysterically about interest rates (see Note 1).

And that’s the resilience paradox.

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Notes:

1. Or something like that, idk, that’s just a hypothetical example, I’m not saying I did that very thing just this morning or anything, ahem.

“But I feel more than words can say…”

A not-review of WAITRESS (2022 touring production)

The first time I listened to the soundtrack to WAITRESS, Sara Bareilles’ musical based on the 2007 film of the same name, I cried silently at my desk for approximately 45 minutes. In my defence, I was pregnant, and a musical about the life-changing impact of motherhood was always going to get me (something Mike knew full well when he urged me to listen to it!). But even then I couldn’t have anticipated quite how important it would become to me.

After my daughter was born in 2018, I struggled with pretty severe post-natal depression. It was some kind of cosmic joke — I had spent most of my life dreaming about becoming a mum, and I’d gone through a traumatic late miscarriage, invasive infertility testing and months of crying over negative tests to get there, and yet here I was, with my much-longed for baby, completely unable to enjoy her because the chemistry in my brain was utterly fucked. During that time, She Used To Be Mine became a kind of anthem — a love song to a lost self, full of regret and longing to go back to a happier version of me.

Thanks to excellent professional support (top tip: if you’re going to become mentally ill, do so a) in Northern Ireland and b) when you’ve just had a baby, because the oft-intractable NHS is actually suitably funded in this area and the help is incredible) and some stellar husbanding/parenting from Mike, I made a good, if slow, recovery, but I couldn’t listen to the Waitress OBC any more as it just hit too close to home. I resigned myself to letting it go, at least for a while.

Then came the announcement that Sara herself was going to be playing the lead role of Jenna for a limited West End run. For Mike — and for me — it was really too good a chance to miss. I have always loved Sara’s voice, and while I’ve never heard a bad version of She Used To Be Mine, for me Sara’s is the definitive one, and the idea of seeing her perform it in person was just… blissful. By that stage our daughter would be old enough to leave her with her much-beloved Auntie, giving us that rarest of things — a child-free break in our beloved London.

So we went. The whole trip was emotionally charged from the start — it was our first time away from Lyla for any longer than a day, it was the first time we’d managed to get back to London (the city we met and fell in love in) since she’d been born, and, to top it all off, there was this new thing called “coronavirus” which was closing airports across the world and threatening to make it our last visit for a while. All in all, set to be a feelings rollercoaster. And we were front row, dead centre. Madness.

It was wonderful, of course. Watching Sara perform She Used To Be Mine was everything I hoped for and more — both Mike and I started openly weeping at that point (sorry Sara) and didn’t really stop for the rest of the show. But for me the real revelation was the song that marks the show’s emotional denouement — Everything Changes, sung by Jenna to her newborn baby daughter. And I was listening to it for the first time since I’d undergone the incredible, life-changing, exhilarating experience of falling in love with my own child.

Oh boy.

It was, to be short, the most magical experience I’ve ever had in a theatre (and I’ve had a lot of magical theatrical experiences).

About a week after we got home, everything shut down. My world contracted to just me, Mike and Lyla. And honestly, we didn’t mind. We were the lucky ones — the ones who had a safe, warm, loving home to cocoon in. For six, seven months we stayed home, just the three of us. Not knowing they would be our last months as the three of us.

I didn’t know, but now I see
Sometimes what is, is meant to be

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I’m 17 months on now from Mike’s sudden death, and starting to slowly rediscover myself — attempt to do the things I love again, try to find a way of being just Ems, rather than one half of Mike-and-Ems. One of the things I’ve started doing is using the night my wonderful friends babysit for Lyla to go to the theatre — sometimes with friends, but often just me. There’s something very freeing about being able to just go and have whatever emotional reaction I need to have in the moment and then… not have to have an opinion.

(Aside: I don’t know if it’s just me, but the older I get the more I want to be allowed to not have an opinion on stuff. There’s a quote from Marcus Aurelius, variously translated but something like: “You are not compelled to form any opinion about this matter before you, nor to disturb your peace of mind at all. Things in themselves have no power to extort a verdict from you.” The first time I read it, as an angry twenty-something, I thought “What a boring, passive way to live one’s life!” Now I read it and think how blissful that knowledge is, and that if everyone in the world adopted the same mantra, it would be a much more peaceful place. And YES I realise this is hypocritical to say when I’m writing a review of something. But a) it’s a not-review, not a review, and b) I never said I wasn’t a hypocrite.)

Anyway, the touring production of Waitress had Belfast as a stop along the way, and included in its cast the incredibly talented Evelyn Hoskins who I had seen as Dawn in the West End production. No matter the emotional wringer I suspected it would put me through, I still desperately wanted to go, and so I booked a ticket (yes, you guessed it — front row… any self-respecting theatre-goer will agree that it’s the best value you can get, I’m not just a glutton for punishment!).

And I was not disappointed. My goodness, what a show. It was everything the West End production had been — laugh-out-loud funny, incredibly moving, packed full of talent (seriously, if you told me 15 years ago that Matt Willis from Busted would be one of the best Dr Pomaters I’d ever seen, I would have — well, I would probably have believed you because I bloody loved Matt Willis from Busted, but 2022 me wasn’t quite so sure it was going to work and was delighted to be proven completely wrong.

Like I said, I knew when I booked it that it would be an emotional experience, but what I didn’t expect was the particular moment that would break me (and break me it did — sorry to everyone who had to share a train carriage home with the fully-grown woman sobbing into a tissue the whole way back to Bangor). It wasn’t Everything Changes. It wasn’t even She Used To Be Mine. Nope, it was the song Dawn sings in Act I, when she’s umm-ing and ahh-ing over whether to put up her online dating profile: When He Sees Me.

Listen, I’m not dating. I have no intention of dating any time soon. Logically I understand that widowed people can date, and that they can remain head-over-heels in love with their late spouse while doing so, but my head and heart are still so full of Mike every single day that I don’t think I’m anywhere near ready.

But. But. There’s still a small part of me that thinks… maybe one day?

And When He Sees Me spoke to the soul of that small part of me, the small part that thinks maybe I deserve to be loved again, to experience that kind of happiness — different but still good — again. And also the small part of me that is terrified of that ever happening.

Dawn sings “What if when he sees me, what if he doesn’t like it? …What if I give myself away only to get given it back?” — a sentiment which I’m sure resonates with anyone who has ever dated, or thought about dating.

But the genius of Bareilles is that it turns out that isn’t Dawn’s biggest fear. What she’s really most terrified of is something a lot more complicated.

Or even worse he could be very nice, have lovely eyes
And make me laugh, come out of hiding
What do I do with that?
Oh, God

What if when he sees me
I like him and he knows it?
What if he opens up a door
And I can’t close it? 
What happens then?
If when he holds me 
My heart is set in motion 
I’m not prepared for that 
I’m scared of breaking open

The only thing that scares Dawn more than being alone forever is… not being alone forever. And oh my goodness, when I heard that, it was like having my own innermost thoughts and feelings, ones I hadn’t even been able to voice to myself, being sung back at me by a redhead in oversize glasses.

Right now the way I’m getting through the day-to-day of life is by being okay being alone. By focusing on me, on Lyla, on building some kind of life for the two of us that looks and feels okay. By not allowing myself to want anything more than that — not even allowing myself to entertain the idea that there is anything more out there for me.

But then there’s that small part of me. The part that wonders if that’s enough for me long term — as a person who loves to love, who loved being one half of a partnership, who relished in the kind of contentment that only comes with the fulfilment of, as Balzac put it, “the heart’s eternal quest to be completely known and all forgiven”.

And like Dawn, I think I’m even more terrified of the prospect of finding that than I am of not finding it.

But still I can’t help from hoping 
To find someone to talk to
Who likes the way I am
Someone who when he sees me
Wants to again…

Don’t read this.

I haven’t written in a long while. I think I was hoping to come back with something positive and inspirational but I’ve got to be honest – year two has been pretty short on positive and inspirational so far. In fact it’s mostly been bleak and unrelenting, which is both hard to live through and boring to read about. So, er… turn back here, I guess?

I can’t even pinpoint why things have got so bad recently. It’s been almost two months since I went into this “dip” and I haven’t really been able to find a way out of it for longer than a couple of hours. Things are just… dark. I pretty much constantly feel on the verge of tears and I have very little motivation for anything. I’m barely keeping going with the things I have to do – work, childcare, cooking, cleaning, laundry – and there’s really no energy left for anything else.

I just… miss him. I miss the contentment he brought to my life, the sense of home. The way that when he was around, everything was just… good. Simple and quiet and lovely and good. I keep having these waves of panic – he’s really gone. He’s not coming back. It’s just me – me and Lyla for now, sure, but after that, once she’s grown up and I’ve done what I need to do, just me. It’s so bleak. My life with him used to stretch out in front of me with such certainty – I knew that no matter what else happened, he would be there, and it would be me and him and we would be happy and in love and finding joy in each other. That never faltered, not for a moment – not through house moves and stress and losing our baby and post-natal depression and everything else we faced together – our joy in each other remained a constant. I had no reason to ever suspect it might not one day. And I’m still reeling from losing it, a year and a half on.

The things I’ve lost feel insurmountable. My best friend. My soulmate. The love of my life. The person who knew me inside out and loved me anyway. The person who made me laugh, who shared my interests, who peppered our conversations with inside jokes that only we would ever get. The one who held me when I cried, and celebrated with me when I succeeded, and made me laugh when I was angry at the world. My co-parent. The only other person in the world who loved our little girl the way I did. It’s too much to lose. It’s impossible to go on without it.

People say to me all the time that what Mike and I had was special. That they could see that the love we shared was once in a lifetime stuff, that many people don’t ever get to experience that kind of love. And last year I was always so grateful that I’d got to experience it at all. But now part of me almost wishes I hadn’t. Because trying to keep going without it when you’ve experienced it is just unbearable. Life is devoid of colour and things I found joyous before are just… flat, because he’s not there to share it with. And because I know, I KNOW, I’ll never find it again. Not like that. And so how can life ever be anything other than lesser? And how do you go on knowing that the best part of your life is over and it can’t come back?

I don’t have any answers. I wish I did. I’ve done everything I can think of to do to get through this and it’s still so hard and getting harder. I don’t know how to go on, I don’t want to go on, I can’t go on. And yet I know I have to, for Lyla, because I love her more than anything and I could never leave her, not when she’s also lost the most wonderful person in the world.

I don’t know why I’m writing this, really. I’m sorry.

Letter to Mike – January 2022

Dear Momo,

It’s been a while since I’ve written here. There are lots of reasons, many too prosaic to get in to, but mostly it’s because the second year of grief is just… dull. It’s a grind. Gone are the early days of incredible pain interspersed with moments of clarity, of gratitude, of inspiration. It’s harder now to find the joy in the small things – cups of coffee, walks by the sea, time with friends, art – although I’m still trying every day to do so. A lot of people say the second year is harder and although I don’t think I agree, I can understand why they say it. It’s more of a struggle. It’s heavier. It’s boring.

It seems strange to say that. To think that losing you could ever become normal enough to be boring! And yet it is. I still have those moments where it hits me all over again that you’re gone, and the pain then is sharp and vital and it’s almost a relief to feel it and express it. But between those moments – most of the time – your absence has become hideously ordinary. My life with you now feels like the anomaly – you were this beautiful, brilliant gift that I had for a while and now I have to get on with the rest of my life without you. And honestly, it’s pretty shit.

That doesn’t stop me wishing you were here to see everything we’ve achieved, though. Our house is rented out, and Lyla and I are living in Jonny and Heather’s annexe just like you and I joked about. It’s beautiful – cosy and stylish and comfortable. I’m doing good at work. Lyla is happy at preschool and she just gets smarter and funnier and better company every single day. She is kind and thoughtful and helpful and silly and sensitive and full of imagination and fun. You would love spending time with her so much. She talks about you every day, and her own grief is hitting a little bit more now – she cries for you sometimes, and all I can do is agree with her – I wish you could come back, too. I miss you, too. You’re my favourite person in heaven, too.

In two weeks I head to our London to see family and friends. While I’m there, I’m meeting up with “my January mums” as you always called them – the incredible women from all around the UK (and beyond!) who came together thanks to nothing more than the month of our child’s predicted birth date, and who are now more like family – and we’re going to the same restaurant on the South Bank where you and I had our last meal out together. I remember it so clearly – we drank margaritas and ate fish tacos and laughed and cried at being back in our place, together. The place we met. The place we fell in love. Same thing.

It won’t be the same without you. But then nothing is. And that’s what I’m having to learn to adjust to, this second year. Nothing is the same. Nothing ever will be.

I love you, Mikey. I always have. I always will.

Your Ems 💖

Email to my MP, Stephen Farry.

I wrote this email to my MP, Stephen Farry, today, on what would have been Mike’s 44th birthday.

Dear Mr Farry,

In December 2020, while No. 10 was hosting a Christmas party and later laughing about it, I and my then two-year old daughter were mourning the loss of my beloved husband Mike. 

Mike died in October 2020 at the age of 42, from a heart condition.

Because of the Covid rules, he was unable to see a GP when he first started displaying symptoms, with various incorrect diagnoses being made over the phone, until eventually his heart failure became so severe that he was unable to breathe and had to be taken to hospital where he spent four of what would be the last six weeks of his life. 

Because of the rules, I wasn’t allowed to go with him when he was rushed there in severe distress by ambulance. 
Because of the rules, I wasn’t allowed to see him for 24 hours while he lay in the ICU in an induced coma. 
Because of the rules, I was only allowed to see him for an hour a day while he was recovering in hospital.
Because of the rules, his daughter, his father, his brother and his sister weren’t allowed to see him at all for a full month.

Because of the rules, when he came home, very sick and with an uncertain future, his family saw him only briefly, once, from a distance, in the garden. 
Because of the rules he was not able to attend cardiac rehab, or any in-person follow-up appointments. 
Because of the rules, when he woke feeling unwell 2 weeks later, he was not able to see a doctor. 
Because of the rules, when he went into cardiac arrest later that day, it took the (wonderful) paramedics an extra five minutes to get into him – five minutes which are vital during a cardiac incident.

Because of the rules, his father, brother, sister, brother-in-law, niece, nephew and friends had only seen him once or twice in the last 6 months of his life, if at all.
Because of the rules, only 30 people were able to attend his funeral. Because of the rules, none of them were able to embrace, to hug, to support each other.
Because of the rules, I did not see my own parents for almost 8 months after his funeral. 
Because of the rules, in fact, for most of that time I didn’t see anyone – no friends, no bereavement groups, no grief therapists – other than my support bubble.

Because of the rules, I became a widow at 36, and I grieved alone.

Up until today, I have not complained about these rules. I understood why they existed, and I followed them because they were for the greater good. Because I don’t want anyone else to have to go through this trauma, losing someone at such a lonely, isolating, impossible time – and please know that I write this knowing how lucky I am that he died at home and I was at least able to be there, unlike so many others who have to bear the knowledge that their loved ones died alone.

But I am complaining now. Not about the rules, but because those who made those rules have flagrantly, blatantly and repeatedly ignored them. They visited family. They travelled to second homes. They holidayed. They had guests on Christmas day. And they got together for a Christmas party at a time when so many people in the country were facing Christmas day separated from family, or even alone.

I have never been so disgusted by the actions of a political party in my life. This cannot be handwaved. It cannot be forgotten. They cannot get away with it. And I want to ask you, Mr Farry, to use your position to ensure that they don’t.

I have told you my story not so that you feel sorry for me, but so that you can use it as an example of just one of the hundreds of thousands – maybe even millions – of people in this country who have suffered during this pandemic – suffered in ways Boris Johnson can’t even imagine – and yet followed the rules anyway. Because it was the right thing to do. Something I am beginning to believe Mr Johnson and his allies will never understand.

With kind regards,

Emma Waring

Letter to Mike – August 2021.

Hey My Heart,

Ten months came and went without me even noticing. I couldn’t believe it when I’d looked at the calendar and realised I’d missed the actual date. I thought about it in the run up, as I always do, but somehow the day itself escaped me. It was actually my first night in the house alone since you died – an incredible amount of time and a testament to the love and care our friends and family have shown me. And it was tough, I won’t lie – so in a way, I suspect my brain was protecting me by not allowing me to acknowledge the date. Combined, it might have been too much.

Ten months. Longer now than the period of time we went without contact before we got together. The longest I’ve gone without hearing from you since the day we met. And yet you are still such a presence in my life – still with me every day. I talk about you – and to you – every day. Not in a melancholy way – sometimes, but usually just… you’re there, part of my internal life, part of my routine. Where I used to talk to myself I now talk to you. And I like that. It’s a way of carrying you with me, always. A part of me.

I follow an amazing grief blogger on Instagram called Mira Simone. She, more than anyone, puts words to my experience of grief when I can’t. Her writing lifts me up and heals me, helps me to understand that no matter how it may feel, I’m not treading this path alone. It’s a well-worn one, walked by millions and millions of women and men before me. The other day she posted a video about what grief feels like which really resonated with me. She ended it with a simple fact: “grief is love”. Grief is love.

And that’s exactly it. As time goes on, my grief has become precious to me. It’s something I treasure, and nurture. Something I hold within myself. I wish I didn’t have to – of course I do, I wish more than anything you were still here, and me and Grief had never had to become acquainted. But that isn’t possible, and so now all I have is my grief – a marker of the love that we shared, the love for you that I still carry. That’s not to say I wallow in it – I don’t, I am positive and proactive and all the things you would want me to be. But I honour it. I feel privileged to be the person mourning for you, just as I felt privileged to be your person. You were beautiful, inside and out. You were wonderful. You were my soulmate. Grief is the price I have to pay for getting to love you, and I pay it gladly. You were worth it. You still are.

I love you, Mikey. I always have. I always will.

Your Ems 💖

Planning.

I’ve always been a planner.

With Mike, planning was easy. Because we knew so early on that we wanted to get married and have babies and all that good stuff, we were pretty strict about The Plan.

No, we weren’t going to go on holiday because Buy A House was in the plan, and that needed all our money. No, we wouldn’t stay in London because Have A Baby didn’t really fit in to that, and we knew we wanted to do that asap. It was all about The Plan. We knew what we wanted our life to look like, and dammit, we were going to get there.

Well.

That worked out well, huh?

I mean, it did, because I loved my life with Mike and I wouldn’t change it. I’m so glad we ended up in Northern Ireland, so glad he got those last years with his family and by his sea and so, so, inexpressibly, unfathomably, breathtakingly grateful that we had Lyla.

Beyond grateful.

But I realise now that all those years we were pouring absolutely everything into something that was, unbeknownst to us, never going to happen. And some of that energy (and money!) could have been used elsewhere, to make our daily lives more joyful, richer, more full of experience. Made the last years of Mike’s life about living, not striving.

That doesn’t mean I’m going to throw all thoughts of the future out of the window and stop planning altogether. Not only is that not sensible, it’s also so completely antithetical to my personality that it wouldn’t be possible! But what Mike’s death has taught me is that it doesn’t make sense to always be working towards a potential future at the detriment of the actual present that exists right in front of you.

Because the future isn’t going to look like you expect it to. It just isn’t. It might be worse, it might be better – but it will be different to the picture you have in your mind. You’ll be different, for a start. Your circumstances will be different, in ways you probably can’t even imagine. And all those carefully-laid plans – well, some of them will come to fruition, but others won’t, and even the ones that do might not make you happy in the way you imagine.

All we have is today.

I’m not saying I’m going to jump out of a plane every day or give it all up and go travelling, or anything. I don’t think every day has to be a stand out adventure. But I’ve realised that it’s important to make the most of every day – to find the small joys and suck the marrow out of them.

Because that’s all we’ve got, really. We have to do the long-term things – the working, the saving, the planning for the future – just in case.

But first and foremost, we have to be in today.

Just in case.

Quicksand.

Here’s where you get stuck.

So. Your life has changed completely and irrevocably. There’s no way of going back, no way of bringing back your person and having that life you had before. And you know that. Logically, you know that. But the problem is, that life was so good. It was so happy, and content, and comfortable. Everything was right. So of course, that’s your template for happiness. Everything about it is, as far as you’re concerned, an essential element to creating a happy life.

So what now? You’re looking at that life and desperately wanting to recreate it as soon as humanly possible because that’s happiness, right? And without all those elements you can’t be happy? So you just need to put all those elements back together and everything will be okay again, yeah?

Only – wait. Hang on. That big, central piece. The most important element of that life is gone and gone forever. And there isn’t another one.

I know. I know. I’m so, so sorry.

It sucks. It sucks beyond the telling of it. I know the pain it brings you. Because I’m there right now. As much as I wish it wasn’t true, it is. There was only one Michael Waring, and nobody – nobody – will ever be his particular combination of sweet, loving, funny, whimsical, silly, caring, generous, good, smart, and giving ever again. Nobody.

So here are your choices. Here are my choices.

Either we accept that nothing else could make us happy and therefore we’ll never be that happy again. Or we believe that we can find happiness in another way – not the same, but equally good – and we start making it happen.

This sounds like it’s leading to a positive, uplifting lesson but honestly? I’m not there yet.

My brain knows that’s the choice in front of me, and it knows which is the best path to take. But my heart hasn’t connected up with that yet. It’s still wavering between the “but-if-Mike-would-just-come-BACK” and “well that’s it, the happiest part of my life is over, I’ll just have to accept it”.

And it doesn’t really matter how much my head tells me that I need to try and find a new kind of happy – one that might feature another love one day, but equally might not, and might instead be filled with friends and passions and my beautiful little girl – I can’t make the rest of me get there any faster. In fact, trying to force it only makes it worse. Doing anything before you’re ready is excruciatingly painful and utterly pointless.

So for now, all I can do is keep putting one foot in front of the other and hope that eventually, I catch up with my brain.

Buckaroo.

Friday was A Very Bad Day.

Most days now I start off functioning okay, coping okay, but as ever, aware of the nagging presence of Grief, sitting there on my shoulder.

She’s still quite a new friend to me – other people I know have learned to live with her, even to value her as a reminder of the love they shared with their lost person, and I can see how that will happen, over time. But for now, she and I are still getting to know each other. Still learning to tolerate our various quirks and hang-ups. Still warily eyeing each other up and testing boundaries.

On Friday she was poking me a bit. Just a little. Nothing I couldn’t handle. A few intrusive thoughts. A few moments of that gutting sense of loss, under control as quickly as it arrived thanks to my honed distraction techniques and coping strategies that keep me from falling apart and allow me to carry on doing my job and caring for Lyla and getting things done.

But then things started to go wrong. Other, external things. A broken laptop. Some (mild) criticism at work about a slightly stressful project. Nothing huge at all. Things that, when Mike was here, I would have shrugged off, or at most gone and asked Mike to talk it through with me, got a hug and been reminded of what’s important in life.

Yeah. That’s not what happens now.

I completely fell apart. We’re talking sobbing, wailing, hyperventilating, even thoughts of suicide (don’t worry, I stayed safe, I have lots of coping strategies for that in place and they work and will continue to do so – but it’s been a long time since I’ve had the urge and it was frightening). I could not get my emotions under control. In the end I had to go and take a Diazepam – something I’ve not had to do for 6 months – and just crawl into bed and wait for it to pass.

So silly. Such a big reaction, for something so tiny. But it always is something tiny. A broken laptop. A child with a cold. A missed bus. An argument with a friend. A burnt dinner. Something so small that when you find yourself wracked with sobs you can’t quite believe it. Such an overreaction. So little resillience.

Did you ever play that kids’ game, Buckaroo? The one where you load the plastic donkey with hats and ropes and lanterns and firewood and, if I remember correctly, a banjo? And it would take everything without complaint until suddenly, without warning, something – one tiny thing – would tip it over the edge and it would buck and throw everything all over the floor?

Yeah. That’s basically what it is. All the time you’re carrying Big Stuff. The usual things that we all carry – working and parenting and day-to-day stresses and the joys of living in a global pandemic – but also my new friend Grief (and let me tell you, she is HEAVY). And next to her, your child’s Grief, because that’s a burden you have to carry as well. And it’s hard going, but it’s manageable – you’ve learned how to carry it, over the months or years. You can carry it and keep going.

But then someone adds something else, and it’s too much. It’s too much and you can’t help but buck, and, to be frank, lose your metaphorical shit.

What a mess.

But there’s no choice but to pick it all up again. Working and parenting and being a friend, they’re things we all have to carry. And Grief, of course – the burden you can’t put down.

So you gather it all, and you load yourself back up, and you wait for the next tiny thing. The rope. The lantern. The bloody banjo, for goodness’ sake. The tiny thing that tips you over the edge.

Buckaroo.