A week ago today, we were about to embark on an exciting family outing. A trip to Birmingham to see the legendary popular beat combo outfit Toto, supported by Christopher Cross, sandwiched in between visits to the city’s finest pubs, concluding with the most expensive breakfast I have ever bought the following morning. All in all, the whole shebang ran into many hundreds of pounds of what was, in the grand scheme of things, probably unnecessary spending, but all the time I watched my bank account dwindling I knew it was worth every last penny. Bleary eyed, we left Birmingham for home, not knowing that in little more than 12 hours my whole world would be turned upside down.
On the evening we returned home, an email arrived that changed everything. My best friend, who some years ago had emigrated to Canada, which was a long held dream of his, had died. We were watching a TV show on catch-up, the excellent Out There for what it’s worth, and as I was immediately in the earliest stages of shock I insisted we finish the episode. Predictably, it passed by in a blur. Shock is a strange beast.
An angst ridden night followed, a giddy combination of crazy nightmares and badly broken sleep. The next day, Tuesday, I almost snapped, with seemingly an endless list of minor things to do that collectively turned a molehill into a mountain. The relief of a satisfactory PSA test, which I paid for privately with the NHS perhaps understandably unwilling to test me for prostate cancer because I have no family history nor symptoms, was but a small blip of positivism. While I had not lost the plot, it did seem to be slipping away.
On subsequent days, my problems seemed to be piling up. Somehow, I had to take back control of my head and the very act of realising it meant that maybe I actually could. In other words, I was not completely out of control. I do what I always do at times like this: I made a list. The list in itself is not a cure-all, but it does mean I know what all my problems and issues actually are. If I can’t cope, I have family and friends who can help me cope.
On Thursday, I did my usual afternoon of volunteering at our food bank. My heart, I admit, wasn’t really in it but I knew it would be good for me to be out of the house actually doing something. I could easily have stayed at home, wallowing in a pool of self-pity, and believe me when I say it was touch and go at one time, but I am glad I went because it had an effect on me. It gave me a little perspective.
Here I am, I realised, no longer needing to work, comfortably off if not exactly loaded, finally able to do many of the things I really want to do, without having to count the pennies, fret about my overdraft and wonder how we will afford next week’s shopping and here is a room full of people who have no pennies to count, are overwhelmed with debt and can’t afford to buy food. I was, finally, thinking of others.
Sure, I was thinking about my best mate’s family and how they must be feeling after his unexpected death, but I had made it all about me. So much of grief is how it affects you. It can be, although obviously it isn’t always, selfish grief. It was what I had lost and that, I fear, was what I was most mourning. Slowly, I began to see the bigger picture.
That bigger picture includes dear friends of mine who are going through hard times. That word again, perspective. I cannot simply set aside my grief, or change how I feel, because real life isn’t that way but I can try to force my brain, or what’s left of it, to think and react differently to life’s problems.
It’s nearly a week since we saw Toto and the last email I sent to my friend was about the show. He never got to read it so that’s kind of poignant, too. I’m still slightly cut-up about his death, knowing now, for certain, I will never see him again. I am still looking at the world through the fog of depression, but not anymore than usual. I can just about tell the difference between the illness that is clinical depression and the sadness of grief after a bereavement, something that is entirely natural.
When it comes to life, as Toto put it in their song Stop Loving You, “time passes quickly and chances are few.” It does and they do. “We only got one life so let’s live it,” Toto also sang in Spanish Seas. The absolute state of me, trying to find profundity in the lyrics of Toto songs, yet there it is.
What a difference a day makes, eh? Here today and all the rest of it. I’ll try to do better this week than last.
