John, a personal note a year on

A year is a long time.

Today I bought some flowers, lit a candle and played Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, which was one of John’s favourite pieces of classical music. I played it to him a year ago, in the hospital, over a pair of portable speakers. I’ve no idea how much of it he could hear.

It is hard to believe that John has been gone all this time. It is still hard for me to accept. It seems only yesterday when he was last smiling, giving me a hug, unconditional love and telling me that everything's going to be alright.

My dreams have mostly caught up with reality. They sometimes still catch me out. At first, when I dreamt about him, it was just as though he were still alive. Waking up, consciousness brought a sinking feeling, of remembering what was real and what was not. (Although John, with his love of the mind-twisting realities of Philip K. Dick, would simply question which reality was the most real.)

Mostly, now, when he appears in my dreams, I tell him that I know he’s really dead. We might still have a conversation, but we both know that one of us isn’t alive. Last night, I tried that but it didn’t work. He said he wasn't dead. So I ran round to my mother's house, with John running after me, and woke her up. If she could see him then I couldn't be dreaming. But she could. He was right there, standing in the bedroom next to me, and rather triumphant at being proven to be right, and alive. I threw myself on the floor, and clung to his legs like I did when I was a little girl, and begged him not to go away again.

Time is supposed to heal. It changes the pain. Today, rather than anguish at his departure, I mostly feel sorry for myself. I also feel sad for everyone else who has been hurt by his departure but, today, mostly selfishly sorry for myself.

The ripples of John’s passing still make waves. Someone calls round for him and is amazed to find him dead. Or the girl next door says she misses watching him walk through the park every day from her school classroom.

I’ve wished so many times that things could have been different. That I could roll back time, reopen the closed door, and try and run the tape differently. I’ve wished endlessly that he were still here to talk with, to make decisions, to be the life force in everything. To be the centre of it all. To watch me get married. To watch his grandson grow up. But it is all pointless wishing really, and just an excuse to wallow in self pity.

So what do you do when someone so important is gone, and a door is closed? I suppose you have to accept that life changes and that the only positive thing to do is to become a new source of energy and life. You have to open new doors. Time brings change. Change realigns things, makes new things important.

Is it time that really heals, or is it the change that it brings?

We havn't scattered John yet. I'm not ready to say goodbye yet.

Maybe next year.