Anniversary (5)

Still hoping sharing this with you will cause it to lose its power over me. That one day I will look at it as if through a veil - that I'll remember my dad, what happened and be able to otherwise let go of those driving emotions, that sadness and heavy feeling of uncertainty. 

One of the things I try to focus on is the moment my mum and sister arrived at the hospital. They'd driven 35 miles with the hope of spending my dad's parting moments with him. 

I was standing in the reception of the casualty, emergency "ER"  whatever they call it at the moment. I'd explained my situation to the kind, quite sexy receptionist professional woman. "My dad's just died," I smiled at her, "my mum & sister will be arriving & I'd like to take them through to see him." She looked genuinely sad for me, or herself, or just sad, I don't know. 

I stood waiting, wondering what I was going to say to them when they arrived and how it was going to be. I worried slightly about handling the whole thing badly somehow and that my bungling would be that final, defining, future memory for us all. I pushed that possibility to the back of my racing mind and tried instead simply to hold my nerve.

I gazed around at the emotional carnage you always see in a place like that. Family and friends in chairs, waiting to be seen or to have their loved ones returned to them, or not. Possibly their only point of reference and clues to required behaviours had been gleaned from various TV episodes of ER. There was no likelihood of Noah or George emerging from the dreadful double doors I'd just walked out of. 

There was a TV star there, though. It was somebody I'd recently had personal one to one interaction with...