I may not look it on the outside, but I’m actually quite sentimental if I let myself, which is why Christmas and especially New Year’s Eve are always a bittersweet time of the year for me even in normal circumstances. Everything surrounding Christmas is drenched in sentimentality about the family and love for the family of course, which is nice if you have a family, not so much otherwise. And then there’s New Year’s Eve and the runup to that, as we all get to reflect on the year past and what went right and what we’d like a do-over on. I always hated that anyway — “another year of not achieving much” — but this is the year Sandra died.
And it’s only been slightly more than a month since she died and it’s been hard, but as long as I can keep up my routines I can cope: go to work, obsess about blogging or cataloging books and comics, don’t try to think too much. But I will be off work from Friday and going to see the family (taking the cats on the train too, which will be fun) and I’ll have two weeks without much distraction but everything reminding me. Not that I won’t have fun at Christmas or not look forward to be away from home for a while, but I think the wee small hours will be a little bit less comfortable…
What do you do after you met, lived with and lost the love of your life? Other than write maudlin posts on your blog that is?
No idea, but it has been four weeks since Sandra died, almost a month since she was cremated and that means I can shortly pick up her ashes — another milestone I’d rather not have reached so soon.
Last Saturday I spent part of the afternoon listening to another of Sandra’s favourite bands, Steely Dan, whose brand of mellow, technically perfect, coked up yacht rock is not quite the sort of music you’d think she’d enjoyed when you know she spent most of the seventies trawling record stores for import funk and dancing to northern soul at the Wigam casino, but she did. What she liked was how mellifluous they sounded, the calm perfection of their sound. She hated any sudden loud noises, discords, anything that jared and whatever you think of Steely Dan, their music always flowed and flowed smoothly.
Perfect late night reading music, with a glass of whisk(e)y or cognac and a good book, a cat somewhere and a roaring fire.
I don’t sleep well on Sunday nights anyway, leftover anxiety from high school “ohshitit’smondaybacktoschoolnooo!” bubbling up, but since Sandra died it has become even more difficult. It was after all the night from Sunday to Monday that she died and I was woken up with the news. Three weeks on it’s still incredibly weird not to have my life intertwined with hers anymore. This weekend was also the first I was alone since she died, without my family or friends or work to distract me. I like having time on my own, to do what I like and not have to take anybody else into account, but this was different. I’ve never really lived on my own, moving out from my parents almost twenty years ago to move into student flats, moving out from there to live together with Sandra. Even when she was in hospital her presence was here. But now we’re three weeks on and I wonder how strong her presence still will be three weeks from now, three months, three years…
One thing that will keep her spirit alive so to speak is Radio 4. Sandra’s daily routine revolved around it, getting up with the Shipping Forecast, Farming Today, then getting annoyed with the Today Programme and listening to the morning shows while she did her business around the house until You and Yours came on, which like all right thinking people she disliked. Like Stephen Fry admitted to years ago in one of his books, Sandra had always been into Radio 4, a “young fogey”, but she grew to appreciate it even more being in a strange country building a new life. The Beeb was there as a lifeline with the old country.
In the evenings it was PM, the Six O’Clock news and finally the comedy, then we’d switch to the telly and Dutch news at eight. In the weekends was when the best programmes were on: Home Truth with John Peel until he died, Saturday Live and Broadcasting House, more comedy, the Archers omnibus (still the only radio programme to be regularly scheduled at Eastercons). the whole rhythm of the Sunday determined by it: I’d sleep in until the Archers would come on, then she’d made breakfast if I was lucky, I’d do the dishes, then reading blogs and do some chores and coffee when Gardening Question Time came on (which we saw live when it came to Amsterdam). But after news, comedy was what she liked best, ISIHAC (never the same without Humpf), the Now Show, Just a Minute, Dead Ringers, The Day Today, Fist of Fun, the various injokes, Mitch Benn and so on undsoweiter.
Late at night the radio would be switched back on as I went to bed, usually being the first to do so, while Sand still puttered around. If she was feeling poorly she would stay and listen as the programmes ended, the Shipping Forecast came back and finally broadcasts ended with Sailing By before the World Service came on. And I kick myself for not playing that at the funeral because it is the perfect music to say goodbye to.
Neither Sandra nor I believe in an afterlife, but if her ghost is floating nearby somewhere right now she would be so pissed. Because if there’s one song guaranteed to drive her nuts it was the Wu Tang’s Gravel Pit. Just mentioning it would give her an earworm. So if ectoplasm starts to drip from the walls tonight I’ll know ghosts are real…
Meanwhile it’s been almost two weeks since she died — it’ll be exactly two weeks at 2:30 tonight. Last week was mostly a blur, this week I went back to work and “normal” life but it has been strange. Strange to not live a life revolving around hospital visits. One of the things that helped, but last week and this week has been to immerse myself in a bit of archive binging, first reading through the entire Something Positive archive while I was sitting next to Sandra’s body, then continuing with Sluggy Freelance when Something Positive had run out of archive…
I don’t want to dwell on her death; rather I would like to use my Sundays to remember Sandra with a new blog feature. So for the next few Sundays or more I’ll be writing about her and her interests.
Because I don’t want to wake up one morning and realise I’ve forgotten her.
Both the place I’m currently working at as the one that actually pays the bills were very understanding about the situation with Sandra and I could’ve taken more time off than I did, but I wasn’t looking forward to staring at the walls in my flat for another week. Last week I survived mainly on adrenaline and with the support of my family and friends (the sympathy I’ve gotten in comments, mails and posts like Michel’s was very welcome) and Saturday I collapsed. Nothing drastic, just that I woke up at my usual time, just in time to listen to Saturday Live and I didn’t know what to do with myself. Nothing I could read interested me, internet did not appeal and even the last refuge of the desperate, daytime television was no comfort. It was only a momentary glitch, but it confirmed what I already suspected. No matter how others grief, I needed routine, distraction and a chance to not think about it all…
Because there’s a heck of a lot of free time now to fill up. In the past two years life revolved around hospital visits and/or taking care of Sandra when she was home, with everything else pushed to the margins. That overwhelming focus is no longer needed now and all my usual distractions aren’t quite enough to fill that void. Work helps, to a certain extent. But I still need something more, something bigger than me to believe in — nothing scary and religious, but some sort of cause to work for or hobby to get deeply involved in, something that does more than just entertain me for a couple of hours. I need to get more political again.
