Writing about the day my Dad died is a strange feeling. I’ve known deep down that I wanted to post about it but haven’t been ready to for awhile and I don’t know that I am now but the words have started to flow and I feel this sudden urge to, so I’ll continue.

I’d been through a whirlwind 2 days, day 1 Dad was not well but nothing we thought anywhere near as extreme as this, I arranged for him to get to the local doctors, ran him a hot bath and skipped off, waving bye to go on a picnic with a good friend. He’d had a natter with me and I left him happily sipping coffee, smoking fags and playing suduko whilst watching Judge Rinder. Little did either of us know that whilst I was out he would be admitted to hospital.

That night he was admitted and we knew that he was very poorly but he seemed settled, laughing and joking with the nurses, telling us to go home. The next 48 hrs were a blurry mess of peaks and troughs with things looking bleak and then hope lifting before suddenly crashing down again.

Right up until that last minute as I held his hand, I pleaded with I don’t know what. God, higher powers, the world, life, my Dad, anything, anything that I thought might change the enevitable.

I didn’t want to believe it was happening and then when it did, I didn’t want to believe it had. After leaving the hospital I kept having morbid thoughts in between wishing it was all a bad dream. It was a numb feeling and shock, I never thought anything like this would happen and at least not now.

I felt numb, it didn’t feel real and was taking time to sink in, all whilst I cried so much that I never thought I’d stop. Then I did stop and I thought I wouldn’t be able to cry again, until I did and the cycle repeated itself. I was overwhelmed, overwhelmed with sadness and fear. This horrible, gut wrenching fear, fear that I’d never had before, fear that was intensified by the fact that I didn’t really know what I was frightened of.

One thing I remember thinking and feeling very clearly and vividly was, “what do I do now? How do I cope?”

If I’m honest I still don’t know the answer to that, all I’ve realised is that you need to take it a day at a time and that has become my motto, a day at a time.