I keep expecting you to, it’s like… I’m suffering the world of pain but I can’t show it, I physically can’t. I’m a mess in every sense of the word. And yet I’m still not 100% certain this is real, that you’re not actually here. I don’t think it’s sunk in, even two months after, I’m still not adjusting to it or accepting it. I can’t. It’s as though I am actually dreaming, I often wake up and think of things I need to tell you, or remember things you told me to do, sometimes I even find myself thinking I need to see you in the hospice or I need to go upstairs and see if you want a drink or ask if I can pinch a cigarette. If I do accept this, I think my life will be pretty much literally over.
I had some very weird and random dreams last night
One was about my dad, and it’s genuinely something I keep doing. But I was talking to Lauren and Taylor about something, and it made me say “oh my god my dad will know that!” and I picked up my phone to call him and as it went to voice mail it kind of clicked in my head.
I had a dream about you last night.
I was young, I know this because I was a lot shorter than I am. It was a nice hot day and you and mum were out in the garden doing some gardening. The dog was padding around under foot as he does and slumping down in the shade next to his water bowl after doing circuits of the patio and first half of the garden. Mum was up at the top of the garden working on the weeds by your shed and I can remember seeing that nice big patch of forget-me-nots, you know, the ones I cried about a few weeks ago that the gardeners had dug up? Yeah, those. And I was thinking about how beautiful everything looked. How colourful and bright. I was happy. I walked up the path to you where you were in front of my shed, you had a heap of weeds on the floor beside you, which I assumed to be from a little patch of dirt that looked new to me. Not new, just fresh. It was damp, fresh soil and it had a little 6inch wooden fence around it which I knew wasn’t there before. You planted this tree that looked pretty plain and boring. I walked over to you and asked what you were doing. You were looking up at the little tree you had just planted, with your hands on your sides and a little smile on your face, enjoying the heat. It was that peaceful look you had about you when you were content and happy with things. The look you had about you when we’d be sitting in the sun enjoying our summer with ice cold glasses of coke. Without turning away from it and without altering your peaceful appearance, you told me it was my little gardening patch and that the tree would bloom into a beautiful cherry blossom tree.
I’ve only realised now, as I’m sitting here looking to buy forget-me-not seeds to replace the patch by your shed that the gardeners dug up, that I’ve realised that wasn’t a dream at all. That was a memory. And one I’ll always hold dear to me.
Home for Alton Towers now. That was a nice time.
I just got home in a bad mood though, and I guess I’ve just had things on my mind all day. I’ve thought about dad constantly. It’s been almost two months now, and I still can’t accept that he’s not around. I still can’t believe he isn’t here. I keep expecting to see him when I come home. Just remembering the little stupid things now has me in tears, like hearing him snoring from my room and laughing to myself about how mum is probably smothering herself with a pillow trying to block out the sound, or the one last hug I remember from him when he was well enough to be up and walking. The last cigarette we had together at the hospice. All of the weird little things. I remember them so well. And I’d do anything to have them back. To hear him tell his stories one last time and to reminisce about the funny holidays we’ve had with Lauren and Dan. To see him laugh again would be nice too.
Daddy,
I keep wondering what you’d be telling me to right now. Whether you’d understand why I was so hurt, upset and angry. What advice you’d give me. And if you thought it was my fault. I’d like to think you thought the same as everyone else, but I still wish I could hear it from you and have a hug from you when I cried.
If you were here then none of this would have happened, and I’m not saying it’s your fault at all. Of course it’s not. It’s just that I found someone, someone new. Not like that, but someone I instantly grew fond of. Someone I thought I could learn to trust, someone who made me laugh. I found this person thinking I’d made a new friend and that things would be okay because I had someone to talk to when things were rough. I had someone I could truly confide in with things without being worried of mine and his mutual friends knowing or hearing. Some things are best left to yourself, but I don’t want to keep them all to myself, I just want to talk about it all, but sometimes I want to tell it to someone who doesn’t know anyone I do - because that way I feel less afraid to open up, I have less concern of anyone else hearing. The things I want to say are things that shouldn’t fall upon the ears of those people, our friends. I had someone I was beginning to trust, I could feel myself opening up, and you know how difficult that is for me. One slip up he makes, and I can’t even speak to him.
Daddy, you don’t know how much that hurts. You don’t know how much I just need that one new person.
Can you please tell me how everything is my fault? Because the blame has all been put on me and I don’t understand why. Is it because I let someone new in? Is that how I apparently caused this all to happen? I’m not “naive” and I don’t have “commitment issues”, you more than anyone know that and know what hurt I’ve been through. It upsets me to think people think I’m naive and have commitment issues, in fact, Daddy, they know fuck all about me or the situation I was put in if they think that. I just wish people would take a chance to listen to what I had to say, instead of jumping to the other person’s story because of course it sounds like it would be my fault. But it’s not! It’s really fucking not! If they’d give me the chance to hear me out, they’d understand. But no.
This is what I hate. We have these mutual friends and I have all but THREE people in Stafford who are MY friends, not OUR friends. But I hardly see them or speak to them. I really thought I’d found someone I could see and could begin to open up to. That was stupid of me to think that it would go well, wasn’t it?
Dad, just, I need you to talk to about all of this. I NEED you. I have nobody to actually talk to about anything I’m feeling because I don’t trust them enough. The one person I trust is the one person I don’t want to talk to about this. Because apparently I’d be guilt tripping them. I just don’t even know who I can turn to anymore. Nothing I say to anyone is the right thing, apparently every word out of my mouth is wrong.
I just can’t take this anymore, Daddy. I love you. I miss you.
Dear daddy,
Things are just getting worse. Everything is. I just constantly feel like shit again. I wish you were here so you could give me a hug and ramble on with advice like you used to. No matter how much you rambled, it always made the world of sense. Daddy, I really miss you. I’m such a mess. I’m in pieces writing this because I need you to be there and to listen to me and to tell me if I’m being stupid. This is the first time in about a week I’ve cried, I just can’t keep myself together. I really need to see someone about all of this, I just hope you’re not ashamed of me for some of the things I’ve thought and almost done. Because I’m trying my best daddy but this is really killing me. I don’t know how much longer I can honestly act like I’m happy all of the time around everyone. I don’t know how much longer I can act like everything is okay and that everything will get better. I just hate that these thoughts keep going around in my head, I’m getting sick of hearing them.
I just want you back so much. I really need you. I love you, you old git.