I’m not going to write much about the funeral. I don’t feel the need or the urge to write about the pain that I have been feeling. After the funeral I walked away from my family and found a small brook within 400 yards of the Crematorium where I stood and thought. I threw plenty of twigs and sticks into the water and watched them not really do a lot. The brook was clearly flowing in one direction but the sticks seemed to be going in the opposite direction if moving at all. Bizarre. However that really isn’t important.
I have always found water calming. Certainly moving water. It was a peaceful moment in a quite horrible 36 hours or so that was extremely trying. I am a loner and I have dealt with my emotions very much gaining strength from my own thoughts. We all deal with pain in different ways but in general I have dealt with the whole situation alone. I was alone when the news came through and I sit here alone and didn’t reach out. I didn’t need anyone to tell me that everything was all right. I just needed to be alone.
That moment of peace was an isolated moment where I could think about my dad without feeling that my attention would be taken away from my thought process. I have always enjoyed water and I suspect I always will. If I ever won the lottery – one of my dads favourite sayings – I would certainly live somewhere with a small brook or stream flowing within the grounds. I would spend so much time there alone with my thoughts. I like to think I am a rather thoughtful person and moving water is what calms me down and allows me to think.
We have pieced together more of exactly what happened and it gives me great comfort that my dad had his stroke in his armchair and the doctors say he wouldn’t have felt a thing. He’d of been sitting there one minute watching TV and the next he would have gone. Instant and with no pain. For a week or so we had thought he’d had the stroke but been in pain and alone on the floor for 12 hours plus but apparently that wasn’t the case. My dad should be enjoying his retirement but he’s not and the greatest comfort is there was no pain and it was quick. You don’t know just how much of a comfort that is to me.
Another thing has been the way people around me have reacted. Being a loner I don’t exactly have too many people I feel I can rely on. I don’t just let anybody in and I reach out for help to far less. Those who reached out to me though really did help and it was interesting those that did. Not just a tweet or a comment on a Facebook update but proper messages, e-mails, texts etc… and to those people I give out a heartfelt thanks.
I didn’t exactly choose to reach out for help as I struggle with that but to those I did – in the main they were fantastic – including people I wouldn’t exactly say I’m close to or have spoken to much in many years. Some people are just genuinely good people and this has only re-enforced that. Those that really went beyond are people whom I’m going to make a real effort with over the coming days, weeks and months as these are the type of people who are worth a lot of time and maybe I have neglected them somewhat.
I’m never going to be someone with hundreds of close friends but I do know some really amazing people and it is nigh on the time I learned that and worked harder to be as good a friend to them as they have been to me over the past ten days – even if they don’t know just how much their support has meant to me.
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