First and Best
I feel like sharing a little story with those of you who read this shitty blog, something real and special to me.
Several years ago, my cousin Nicola died. She had epilepsy and hadn’t been taking her medication for a few days. She had a bad fit and died during it. She was 26. Nicola was in my life more than any of my other cousins, she was basically the daughter my mother always wanted, but the poor sod ended up with two sons (aint life an arse!). Nicola was tall and beautiful, a football player and black belt in karate. She filled books with poetry and was damn good at it. Nicola’s funeral was my first funeral and the best one I’ve ever been to.
The room was bright, red and gold; her casket decked in Manchester United merchandise. We read her poetry, talked of her life, her humour, her fuckups. God was absent and not invited, religion was banished, there was no time for Jesus, this was Nicola’s day. It was wonderful, just hearing about her and nothing, nobody else. Then Lionel Richie started singing Three Times a Lady through hidden speakers and I wept waterfalls. It is right and proper that the world should shatter when good people die. It’s good to hurt, it’s right to hurt, and go on hurting for as many months or years as your heart wants to. They matter, they really fucking matter. Nicola mattered and still does. At the wake, while the mourners were getting pissed up as drunken farts and laughing, men in tailcoats released armfuls of doves in the pub car park. Twice. I’m a shit writer, but it was what a sendoff ought to be. The funeral kicked ass, almost as much as Nicola did when anyone pissed her off. My mother has a photo of her in her flat, always prominently displayed. Look at the ass-kicking poet for yourself.
I remember her staying at my house a lot, her own mother treated her like shit. She’d stay with us, my brother and my mother, and get upset when we fought. She had an unhappy life, one of mistreatment and loss. Once, during an epileptic episode in a hospital, she had been tied to a radiator by the staff and left there (this was in the 80′s). My mother found her and raised hell. Mum really did love her, they were there for eachother. I still remember my mum waking me up the day after she died by screaming in the kitchen. I’d never heard a scream like that before, just a piercing, instantly recognizable expression of pure grief. Thank fuck she’s a smoker, because I ran downstairs, lit a fag for her, held her, made a coffee and it actually helped.
Of all the bullshit platitudes about life that are out there, the only one I like is “shit happens”. I’d add “with alarming frequency” to the end of it but it works XP. You don’t need to look for a silver lining or something inspiring from a shitty situation, some things are just shit. Embrace the shittyness, the realness. Don’t act like this is all to teach you some damn life lesson. Or do. Either way, Nicola rocked and she died too damn young. Salut!











