It must look like the worst birthday ever. I’m alone in my local with a huge pile of envelopes and a solitary pint of bitter. To an onlooker, I’m friendless and miserable but intriguingly popular, given the large number of cards. But it’s not my birthday. They can’t see the “With Sympathy” messages and cover photos of funereal lilies and orchids that have sprouted among our little family since my wife’s death nearly a fortnight ago.
Until tonight, I’ve avoided opening any of this trickle, then torrent, of bereavement mail that pours daily through our letterbox as word spreads that Helen has succumbed to the disease she faced with such courage for nearly two years. I’m wary of tipping myself into a darker place when so much is still to be done as we approach Helen’s funeral this week.
This evening, however, badly needing time out, I grab a pile and head to the pub. Choosing a quiet corner, I immerse myself in the outpouring of sentiment, love and respect for Helen. We Brits may struggle face-to-face to express our feelings but are pretty handy with the written word.
So overwhelming is the evidence of her inherent goodness and popularity that my own mood turns sunflower-like towards its warmth. What had felt like a duty becomes an affirmation of all that I knew of Helen and loved. I start smiling like a Cheshire cat, adding for the regulars at the bar a new element (manic happiness) to the intriguing theatre of my presence.
Half an hour and another pint later, I finish and place the last envelope on the towering pile. The very act is like flicking a switch that short circuits all the positivity that has built up around me. It’s as if all the momentum and goodwill in what people have written is lost in the very act of reading it.
It makes me feel miserable and, perhaps fuelled by the beer, I wonder whether the emotional fuck I’ve swerved now beckons. Despite the survivor’s defence of reminding myself that I’ve no right to fall apart when Helen didn’t, despite all she faced, I feel right on the edge of being overwhelmed.
But then, as so often happens while tottering on the abyss, a hand reaches out and pulls me back. My phone rings: it’s my old school friend Tom, from Newcastle.
Both Tom and his wife, Gail, have been so supportive and understanding – Gail’s sister died of cancer in her 30s. So I perk up and take the call: “Hi, Adam, are you positive we can’t help in any way?” We chat, but my mind is elsewhere – something in Tom’s sentiment, language and accent have stirred a distant memory.I’ve had an interest in, but cynicism towards, life coaching. Only one bloke, a former scaffolder, Jim Michaels, from Newcastle – like Tom – ever convinced me of its substance. His accent helped to still the “bullshitometer” whose needle would flicker with most life-coaching shtick. Tom’s accent had unwittingly unlocked this memory.
I remember Jim’s maxim: “Positive thinking is worthless. Positive action is priceless.” – whose potential nonsense was made credible by the man If I wanted to try to keep alive the positivity and goodwill in the cards and letters, I needed to stop moaning and take my own “positive action” to do so.
I look again at the pile of paper in front of me, so good at evoking love but so poor at prolonging my positive emotion. So what about a virtual memory box to harness that goodwill? Something close to the physical box suggested by the brilliant folk at the bereavement charity, Cruse who had talked me sane in the hospital corridor even as Helen lay dying. But this one, containing their mum’s story, would always be online whenever and wherever my children, Millie and Matt, might need it.
I could create a secure online space to mark Helen’s life, dramatising her persona as described by those who’d known her in so many different ways – at work, home, in childhood, within the family, or as colleagues and friends. The kids could then transcribe comments, add pictures and their own feelings. Fittingly, a true “eat the elephant a bite at a time” task so beloved of the life-coaching community. It could kick off at once and evolve.
So, one bag of chips and two bottles of Adnam’s Broadside later, I’m slumped at the computer. I’ve built a secure template for the virtual memorial that will outlive the funeral, keeping alive all the love and respect in the cards, as a tribute to Helen that Millie and Matt can access anywhere in the world throughout their lives.
I raise a final weary but happier glass to Geordie inspiration.
Adam Golightly is a pseudonym
