Return for the worst
It’s been nearly 5 years since I’ve been here.
Life has changed a lot but also not at all. Looking back through these posts make me sad.
Seeing how broken I was but with such fighting spirit. It’s strange to think I’m the same person.
What brings me back? Not love. I have love. Not heartbreak. I haven’t been broken since then.
It’s the man with the Marlboro Reds.
10 years ago nearly to the day, we sat in mum’s living room. You sitting in the leather chair, my step mum draped over the arm. The fire was roaring.
“Throat and mouth cancer”
I can’t remember what I said but I said something sarcastic staring into the flames.
We walked to the local pub and you sat next to my sister, arm around her. The closest I’ve ever seen you two.
We tried to keep the closeness but you’re dangling over the cliff. We’re reaching out but you push us away.
Too much chemo. Too much radiotherapy left you broken. Too much smoking, too much drinking. Trying to overdose on your pills. Multiple strokes and broken bones.
But much like your mother, you’re stubborn and it feels like you’re on your 63rd chance of life.
In the last few years I’ve said goodbye to you countless times. The doctors call you a medical marvel. A man on deaths door resurges.
Today you had another biopsy. We’re waiting for the confirmation that it’s come back.
I cry, I well up, I want to come and be with you.
But it’s hard to be sad for a man that is so self-destructive, so unwilling to love himself, his children or his grandchildren.
Will you make it this time? The doctors aren’t confident, but they never are until you become a miracle patient once again.
I don’t know how to mourn for a man who’s not there.
