Missed

My next door neighbour died last night. Eleven months after a perfectly normally Christmas.  Almost eleven months to the day since his ‘funny turn.’ A little less than eleven months of painful and useless treatment.

His wife came round to tell us.  Their young teenage children in her wake. 

Apparently he hadn’t wanted to get up at all yesterday.  Been reluctant to get out of bed.

“It’s the last time I struggle with you down these stairs” she said she’d said. 

He died on the bottom step.

Just

Stopped

Breathing.

Still they tried to resuscitate him in the ambulance outside.  We hadn’t even seen it come.  There were no flashing lights.  No siren call.  Nothing to disturb our peaceful house.

Then he was gone.

I’d thought of going to make him a cup of tea on Friday.  Then thought of something else.  Then the afternoon had gone.  I made his widow a cup tonight.

She clung sadly tight as I hugged her.  She shared tears with T, though T sobbed more.  I held his children as the women cried in each other’s arms.

His heartbreakingly dignified daughter, saltwater stains on her cheek.  Being brave.  She seemed to grow up before my eyes.  A child slipping away, a woman emerging in the shadows.

T lost her father at the same age.  For a moment she and the daughter looked very alike. 

His son.  His son.  Charlie was so proud of him.  So proud.  Now standing there untouched by any obvious emotion.  He’d been practising magic tricks since the ambulance had taken his dad away.  Just as though it was no more significant than a sparrow taking bread from the bird table.  But it wasn’t heartlessness.  I know that’s the way it is with boys.  We don’t make a fuss.  Best not to.  Everyone else is so upset already.  We have to be the Man of the House.  We’ll deal with it in our own way.  In our own time.  Maybe.  We’ll sort it out. I saw that grim resignation in his tearless shattered eyes.

And I missed him.  I had missed him.  I missed a chance to pop around and say hello, to share a brew.  Simple things.  Simply missed.

Comments

[Ian]

So sad. There's always so many things that we wished we'd said and done.