dark day bright

So. Four years on from that terrible day when we found our boy sitting comfortably in his armchair, watching BBC 2 but dead, very dead; moreover, as it was plain to see, for several days. We had visited in the previous days, but on seeing his bike not there had assumed he wasn't in. Later we discovered his bike, which despite my warnings to him had been left unlocked, and had been stolen. Then began the horror: the screaming, the wailing and weeping, the despair and the emptiness. He was gone, my only son, my only genetic link to the future, the boy I hardly knew but so desperately wanted to. A future where that was possible had been so cruelly snatched from my grasp.

4 years on the feelings have moderated, as they must. But the sense of despair and emptiness remains, a daily companion to each and every day. My life is not destroyed, but has been seriously handicapped, like losing a limb or a lung, or both. I am diminished in my spirit, my inner self. I go on, because I will not voluntarily give up the gift of life, but it now seems a rather shallow gift, like a last minute present secured at an airport shop, not really something to be treasured by the recipient; more to be tucked away in a cupboard and forgotten.

These days I am getting better at "faking it"; putting over the atmosphere that I am OK, that I am coping, even that I am enjoying life. Sometimes I fake it so well I even persuade myself that it isn't too bad: drugs and alcohol help, as do reading, writing, good music or cinema. Oh yes, and juggling. So don't worry too much: compared with an awful lot of people I know, I really am OK. I am the walking wounded, but they are still allowed to join the battle, aren't they?