Sketches of grief

For the last however many years I would ring Sid on a Monday and a Friday to ‘check you’re still alive’.

We would chat in no particular order about the fate of Cardiff City and the running of a shit Kia Ceed. I would pretend that work was fine and he would increasingly get annoyed about Jeremy Corbyn.

Somewhat skillfully we would normally end on the topic of death, or an apocalypse of some sort, or tales from world war 2.

During the ‘steroid years’ when he was prescribed a significant dose to stop potential blindness, these chats could be lengthy and often distressing as he ranted about the world around him or penned another letter to a power company inept in basic admin.

I wrote this some time ago as I followed in his footsteps across the Malverns.

One recent Friday as I battled the traffic leading up to the air balloon roundabout the phone rang out.

10 minutes later

20, 30, and 40 minutes later, the phone rang out.

I got home

It began to darken outside and his phone still rang out.

I got back in my car and rang and rang all the way to his house some 40 miles away

And that crisp Friday evening morphed into a weird intense episode of Casualty as I called for an ambulance, climbed fences and called ‘Sid’ into the silence of his home.

The paramedics arrived just as I got into the house and I trembled to them that I was too scared to go upstairs.

Within minutes one of them came to tell me my suspicions were correct, and Sid was dead.

He had passed away in the bath. I let out a gutteral wail of sorts. He had mentioned to me he had been stuck in his bath a couple of times over the years. Not the fucking bath!

I called my family and the paramedics asked me to contact an undertaker. Google found me what turned out to be a very helpful and prompt funeral director who arrived just as the paramedics were leaving thankfully.

All very efficient , which Sid would have liked.

The adrenaline surge of that evening painted vivid colours as I ran through forests, the world seemingly pulsing and the silence sat on my shoulder whispering in my ear.

And then a period of organisation. Phone calls to strangers, meetings with more strangers, decisions and awkward pauses.

The silence grew longer.

I burbled through the funeral, hoping I could come across all Michael Sheen-like but instead whimpering in front of mainly strangers. ‘Do not go gentle’ requires some timbre but I squeeked it out which annoyed me.

We put the house on the market and it sold quickly. We gained probate relatively smoothly too with all the associated legal shenanigans.

I cut his lawn a couple of times and took to twitter to grumble about ill timed letters to a dead man from the tv licensing people.

And the silence continues to grow.

I’d been preparing to take on the 3 peaks challenge for some time which was a good distraction. The intensity of the experience amplified the resulting silence. That phone call I would have made just rang out. I am number 3 no more.

And I notice sometimes the silence sits with me.