Is anyone there???

Probably not but f#ck it, here goes……

It’s been a minute since I last wrote anything down here, well four years to be precise and although some things remain the same (Mal is STILL decorating,) I feel like my whole existence has gone through a pretty seismic change. COVID restrictions have been and gone, my forties have pretty much been and gone but most of all my entire family unit has changed beyond all recognition.

The last post I made was in 2020 and for a couple of years afterwards life just chugged along as it tends to; the entire world was social distancing like nobody’s business, fighting over bog roll and gaining bragging rights if we scored a two pack of chicken breasts in our local supermarket. I was still regularly travelling south in my little car to support my parents with whatever it was they needed me to do whenever they needed me to do it. We were loving spending time with each other and getting fed up with each other in equal measures, mum and dad were getting older and a little slower but things felt like they were almost heading back to something normal.

Except they didn’t.

Around the beginning of 2021 it quickly dawned on my sister and I that dad in particular was beginning to decline physically and that decline was really impacting his day to day life. Any sort of physical movement was difficult for him and becoming more and more painful so he was starting to lose his independence. Transferring in and out of his wheelchair became a bit of a battle and latterly he was finding getting in and out of his car difficult. He’d already all but given up driving but really enjoyed playing passenger so seeing him have to fight to be able to get out of the house was a huge wake up call for us.

So myself, my sister and our partners did what was needed. We all took up the slack and did more and more to make his and mum’s lives as easy as we possibly could. Whenever I went down I would make a point of taking dad out in his car no matter how long he took to get in it, giving mum a bit of space and some much needed respite. I made sure dad and I still had our road trips, our chats, our arguments and our laughs. I got to know him better than I had ever done and we became closer than we had ever been.

When it became more and more apparent that dad really couldn’t get in and out of his car without great difficulty due to it being quite low slung, myself and my sister went as far as to replace our own vehicles with ones that were a little bit taller and a little bit easier to access to make it less painful for dad to get in and out of. This meant he could still get out and about, could still have some level of freedom and still have a bit of independence.

At the same time mum was also having her own struggles with her health and wellbeing. She was rapidly becoming unwell again both physically and in hindsight emotionally. I was still living 80 miles away so my sister, her husband and daughter picked up much more of the everyday support that mum and dad both needed; shopping, collecting prescriptions, all their day to day chores because that’s what you do. You support, you assist, you do what you need to do to make someone else’s life less difficult. You might not want to (we didn’t, often), you might complain (we did, often, but only to one another) but you still buck up and do it.

Until you don’t need to do it any more.

In June 2022 quite suddenly and very unexpectedly dad passed away and in the two years that followed mum went into a pretty fast decline. She began cutting herself off from those around her and shutting herself out of the world. She had several hospital admissions, became quite physically and mentally frail and really just disappeared into herself. After a difficult 21 months mum passed in March of this year and suddenly my sister and I were orphans.

Throughout their relationship my brother in law was one of the only people mum could take tough love from. Whenever she’d be difficult or a bit of a handful (which was often) he’d be the one to give it to her straight and surprisingly she’d take it. I know she absolutely adored Billy and am sure she had a massive respect for him as he’d never kowtowed to her but still, he could get her in line where none of the rest of us were ever able to.

The absolute kicker is that in the months leading up to mum’s passing my brother in law was fiercely battling cancer, a battle he lost the night before mum’s funeral. The treatments he had been having meant that physically he was in no state to be seeing anyone let alone travelling out to mum’s house and mum was in no frame of mind to be travelling to his. So they didn’t get a goodbye, no last words, nothing. And suddenly my sister and I have to be adults.

I can happily admit that so far my life has actually been somewhat simple, I have never had the pressure to grow up, nor have I wanted to. My parents were quite dominant characters, would take over a room if they were in it so major life decisions were pretty much made for my sister and I. When Julie and Billy married he made sure she was safe, secure, loved and never forced her to ‘lose the magic’ and grow up. We have quite gleefully continued to live life in a bit of a bubble of childlike nonsense, immature behaviour and inappropriate humour. We would always be the ones looking for the adult in the room to take charge.

Now we had to be the adults in the room.

I vividly remember sitting outside the respite facility where mum and Billy had both passed, trying to make some sense of what had happened over the last 9 days and Julie turned to me and said “I hope Mal knows what’s about to land at his door? He has to be the adult for all of us”. I sat for a few seconds and remember replying with absolute honestly “I’m pretty sure he does, he’s known us both for 10 years and I’m sure he realises that left to me and you your kids are f**ked”.

And then we laughed.

That roaring belly laugh that comes from the soles of your boots, you can’t catch your breath, your sides ache and tears are streaming down your cheeks. In that moment we laughed to fend off the utterly crushing sense of loss. We laughed until it was wholly inappropriate to be laughing so we said our goodbyes and got into our respective vehicles and headed home in absolute solitude.

I can honestly say I don’t remember much of the 80 or so mile drive home other than feeling utterly flat. For someone who relishes their own company and thrives in their own space I felt so alone it startled me. Please understand I knew I wasn’t alone, I had Malcolm, I had my sister and her beautiful kids and I had my wonderful circle of friends but in that moment, in my car I had only me and my thoughts and I could feel this sense of overwhelming sadness creep upon me. I drove home in complete silence, the road itself being so familiar I can’t truthfully remember any part of it. Home to safety, to security, to Mal.

And to Jasper.

Oh sweet, stubborn, obstinate, domineering, not-so-little Jasper. Chief Mouser of Loanhead and goodest of boys, my gloriously beautiful emoshunal support kat.

If you remember we were building an extension on the house and had vowed that when it was completed we would rescue a dog, give an older pupper a decent few years and bring ourselves a little bit of joy. We expected it would be a bit of a character, probably an asshole, definitely vocal, certainly set in its ways and absolutely chaos. We got every single one of those traits, just wrapped up in a not so little jet black cat.

Jasper came to us via the Deeside Cats Protection League and as soon as I saw him I knew he had to come live with us. So I filled in the application form….then I sent an email…..then a Facebook message….then a text. Short of sending off a carrier pigeon I made damned sure the DCP knew full well that I was determined he was destined to be Lord of Loanhead Terrace and on the first Saturday in October 2021 he became exactly that.

Jasper was a sprightly 7 years old when we got him and had had a very difficult few years prior to him coming to live with us so myself and Mal were determined to make sure that the next years of his life would be the absolute best. We’d do everything we could to ensure that he was happy, loved, safe and secure. Little did we realise just how much of an impact he would have on us as people and just how much we would come to rely on him to get us through what would become the toughest period of either of our lives so far.

As you’ve probably worked out Jasper came into my life just before my parents began to deteriorate and as difficult as some of my visits with them were, I always found myself excited to get home, always happy to see him. Jasper began to be a very welcome distraction from all the shit that was happening not just in my family but Mal’s too. You see aside from what was developing in Tayside with my lot Mal’s mum and brother were also having some pretty serious health issues of their own adding further worry to both of us. Throughout it all was Jasper, always aloof, forever the constant.

It’s a bit weird but growing up I was always around dogs, never cats. I liked them, don’t get me wrong but I had minimal experience of them. Jasper changed that entirely. Once the big fella came into our lives I seemed to morph into the ultimate cat dad despite the fact that day-to-day Jasper generally couldn’t be arsed having me around, or at least that’s how I first saw it. Only, it really wasn’t like that and we quickly realised he just had different roles for each of us; Mal was his comfort and got pettings and cuddles whereas I was Jasper’s buddy and got playtime and chases.

As time went on we discovered that he also saw me as a bit of a protector. If someone he didn’t know came to the house he’d stand behind my legs or come and sit beside me until he was a little more sure of our visitor, almost like he was claiming me as his and his alone. That then changed again when my dad passed away. We realised any time I became emotional or tearful Jasper would be by my side in a flash, comforting and supporting, making sure I was okay. He did the same thing when mum died, the same thing when Billy died. Each time I was able to pull through the loss and get on with things because each time I had Jasper to focus on.

Until we didn’t.

It’s funny how loss can affect you, when dad passed I just got on with things because I had no option. My mum needed me, my sister needed me and her kids absolutely needed me. I had no choice but to process things and let others help me through it so that I could help my sister and her family through it. When mum died my sister was understandably engulfed in her husbands situation, she was fighting hard to hold herself together for the sake of her kids and was doing a heroic job of it. How the hell she was able to get herself out of bed in the morning never mind be a pillar of absolute granite for her husband and kids was beyond me so how dare I even contemplate wallowing in self pity and grief. Besides, I had mum’s house to pack up (more on THAT later), so I got on with it and (I think) I got through it. Same when Billy died. Been here before, lets get through this one day at a time and we will be fine. I had Jasper to get me through anything.

Jasper.

My obsessively adored Jasper fell ill suddenly and swiftly at the beginning of September this year. In the space of three days we went from thinking he was just a bit constipated and needed a shit to being told he had probable heart failure and most likely wouldn’t survive. So we had to make the worst decision imaginable to do what was best for him. We couldn’t and wouldn’t prolong his suffering just so we had more time with him, we knew full well that would have been cruel so we made the decision and had our bestest boy put to sleep.

Despite everything that I had experienced in my 48 years of life, every trauma, every loss, every single hurt I can truthfully say I have never felt a physical pain like I have losing him. I honestly felt my cold little heart break. It broke for the bond that I had formed with this little hairy terrorist; it broke for the decade or so of happiness and love Jasper had been denied; it broke for the naked grief that Mal was going through in that instant but mostly it broke for the immeasurable pain and loss that was once again bleeding through my life, only this time I had no ability to pull myself out of this.

I found very rapidly that my house had instantly become cold, lifeless and unwelcoming. Like adjusting the contrast on your TV, it felt like the colour was turned off and Jasper’s absence was palpable. All of a sudden I couldn’t bear to be at home alone, I couldn’t bear to be outside or in company and I couldn’t for the life of me control my emotions. I think losing Jasper was the final straw for me and that brutal loss was only adding to some very complex feelings and emotions I’d had since mum passed.

In the space between a passing and a funeral, in the nothing time when you’re just waiting, where nothing matters and nothing is normal, where time feels like it’s standing still and days meld into one another you get time to process. Time to be mournful, time to be angry, time to feel cheated, time to grieve. In that nothing time between mum passing and her funeral none of us left behind had any of those luxuries to help us process her loss.

Julie and her kids had the gut wrenching period of Billy’s final days and rightfully had no mental capacity to deal with anything else. Mal and I did our best to be there with them when they needed us to be but also to step back and let them be alone when they had to be. Some extended family were with us throughout all of it, most were not (that’s for another time and place). It felt then and still feels now that essentially we were just the five of us, blindly stumbling through the most horrendous period we could possibly imagine and in the midst of it all of that I had to deal with mum’s house.

I’ve never before had to pack up someone’s life, never had to cross the t’s and dot the i’s of someone else’s story and although I never hope to do it again, in hindsight I’m actually thankful I had to do that for mum. It gave me a focus, a task that had to be completed in a very short spell and something to drag my attention away from the overwhelming pressures that being the adult in the room was bringing.

Mum and dad had lived in a disabled access social housing property and once we had given them notice of mum’s passing we were given a very generous two weeks to pack up, clear out and hand back the keys. Two whole weeks. We could have more if we wanted it but of course we’d have to pay. In the end we did have to pay but only for one extra week. 21 days and there was zero trace my parents had lived there.

Oddly I found that emptying her house brought some very unexpected comfort, you see I got to understand more about her than ever I had before, more than she was ever comfortable sharing with anyone. That seems to have given me so much more compassion towards her because I feel I understand why she was who she was, not an excuse but more of a reason. Mum really didn’t make it easy to be around her, she was incredibly difficult at times and often through her own insecurities very controlling. It was often painfully difficult to like her, didn’t make us love her any less it has just made the grieving process all the more problematic. There’s days I miss her terribly, other days I have an alien sense of freedom and space I feel guilt for.

Where am I going with this? I’m not sure but I best find a conclusion before I ramble on. Part of the reason I’ve written this is to get it out of my head and into words, try to make it a bit easier to digest I guess. The other part is probably the part that scares the shit out of me more, I’m about to start counselling.

I’m at a point where I really need to deal with my thoughts and feelings before I do what I usually do and tie them up in a nice little bow and pack them off into the abyss, that or they swallow me whole. I have tried therapy before but didn’t really engage with it. Too headstrong, thought I was doing okay and to an extent I was. I’m not now though. None of this is okay and I’m a bit scared. The thing is I’m not scared it won’t work, I’m scared it will. I’ve lived with anxiety, lack of confidence in myself and nervous energy for so long I’m not sure how or who to be without them.

I guess I’ll find out.

Besides, we’ve now got two little souls to focus on through our next chapter; Alfie, a lovely black and white tuxedo and Baxter, a jet black witch’s familiar just like our big, beloved Jasper. Alfie and Baxter are Bonded brothers who came to us from the self same rescue centre as Jasper and were brought into the family on the first Saturday in October, 2024.

But that’s a story for another time.