So it's the year anniversary of your Father's death, it's a year to the day that you watched him drugged to the hilt, a year to the day that they stuffed him so full of chemicals that he was unaware of you, and you know they needed to do it because they had to in order to stop him thashing around in bed, but it didn't work because he still does it and he looks so uncomfortable and you kind of wish they hadn't if it wasn't going to make any difference, because then, at least, at least you would have got to say good-bye.

And so you watch as your father flails at the sheets in his stupor, and you watch as that composed and proud and clever man waves his unconsious arms around, and you feel so bad because he's naked in that hospital bed, just like you should be when you're about to die, but everytime he moves he shifts the covers down further and you're scared, so scared that they're going to go too low and you just want to run away, run far way. And you don't want to touch him because he doesn't look like your Dad anymore, and he doesn't feel like your Dad anymore, he just looks like some sad, ill stupid person, dribbling in the bed and making horrible breathing noises, and you can see it physically is him, but to you it isn't him, it's not your amazing, funny, witty, sarcastic Dad lying there, it's the epitome of someone dying, the absolute shell of him.

And you hate yourself.

You know that if you don't touch him you'll hate yourself forever, never be able to forgive yourself, but all you want to do is get back the Dad you know, the one you love who can fix up showers and build extensions and who regularly told you you were funny and lovely, and who took reallybeautiful photographs and who bought you a book on grammar in order to stop you ringing up everyday with questions about punctuation.

And who could do anything. Anything.

So you touch him. You hold his hand.

And you don't know where the words come from but all of a sudden you say, "Dad, I love you, but it's time to go now. You can go now. You need to stop fighting."

And then he squeezes your hand.

He actually squeezes your hand, and you know you haven't imagined it, it's not that you were wishing for it, because you weren't. You didn't even know it was a possibility. You know that he has heard you, and that you have told him he can let go and all of a sudden you realise what a potentially horrifying mistake you have made and suddenly all you want to do is shout:

"Don'tgonotyetpleasestayIloveyouIneedyoudon'tgoDadpleasestayohIloveyouohIneedyouyou'remyDadohGodohGodohGod."

But you can't because you have to BE BRAVE, so you kiss his warm head for the last time, and you leave the room and you tell the hospice that you'd like to leave now, and, no you don't want to be there for when he dies, because quite frankly, you think you might die too if you stay there and watch it.

And you go home, and you wait.

And then he dies, a few hours later.

****

And then a year later, when it's all over with, and you've scattered his ashes, and grieved, and been through therapy, you think, well, it's a year now. Get on with it, move forward. So yeah, there's no-one to fix your shower, and yeah, everytime you see his picture in a magazine it's going to hurt, but you're a BIG GIRL now.

Grow up, get over it and move on. I mean, everybody's father dies eventually, right? This is not specific or unusual, you are not so special.

So you pick some flowers to put by the Yew Tree. You pick daffodils, because you don't want to put down bought flowers, and daffodils are available and anyway the ones you pick are tiny, beautifully scented, and well just really, really Spring. And also it makes you laugh, because you've always had a problem with daffodils.

So you like the contrast.

So you pick them, and you wrap them in wet kitchen towel and they're OK. And then you have lunch with your family and friends, a lunch in the pub that you went to the day after the funeral, the pub where it is always sunny when you need it to be. And it is sunny. It's wonderful. It's so sunny that you sit there for ages, much longer than you intended and when you get back to the car the daffodils on the back seat are wilted and dying.

And you feel so sad.

And you say, "Well, now. I can't give wilted daffodils to Dad. Can I? Can I?" And you look around and everyone there appears to think you can, and that Dad would understand, and in fact they all laugh at what he would say about that.

So you think, "OK," and you drive to the gate, the nearest gate to the tree. But your brother-in-law seems to think he knows better and insists it's the wrong gate and even though you've been there four times and he's only been once you decide to let him go the way he wants just because it's easier than a row, and you pick up the dying/dead daffodils and you walk through the woods along a really muddy path. And you know it's the wrong path, because the path you should have gone down has hardcore and bricks underneath it so it's much less muddy and it's also straight. And this one isn't straight. At all.

And also there's the fact that your stepmum who lives right next to the wood and therefore really, truly, knows, well she told you to be sure to take the first gate and not the second but it's not the day for assertiveness or rowing so you let it ride and you go the wrong way even though you know you are going the wrong way because it's easier to do that than start a fight about it...

And so you're there, holding your badly dying/dead daffodils and you step oddly in the mud and you fall. You fall right over.

You fall like a cartoon character, a proper banana skin slip, and you land with your arse in the mud and you sit there wet and muddy, mud on your trousers, up your back, all over your legs, your hands, your face, your everything, and you laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh.

And you look and you see that everyone is laughing, because it really is funny, and none of us can stop. It's just so fitting that this should happen.

And then you look and you see that not only are the dead and dying daffodills dead and dying, they're also spattered all over with thick brown globs of mud.

And you think, "How funny. How sad." You're laughing, but it could so easily turn into hysterical sobbing.



And the flowers you end up placing by your father's tree, the big tall, fully-grown been-there-for-a-hundred-years Yew Tree that he used to sit under most every day, the tree that represents 'him' to you, well the flowers you put there are muddy, wet, wilted, rubbish, dying, dead daffodils.

Muddy. Wet. Wilted. Rubbish. Dying. Dead.



He would have absolutely pissed himself.