Yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Yesterday, the 26th of May, marked six months since my beautiful daddy died on the 26th of November 2024. It also marks six painfully long months since I caressed my fingers around his, his voice no longer even a whisper, his light fading. In the early hours of that morning, I kissed him goodbye, praying that the silence between us was Mum taking his hand and his final breath, stirring a rekindled joy they would resume in a world apart from the one they had left behind. 

Anniversaries command us to mark their passing. These milestones exist to weigh us down, to ceremoniously place yet another boulder of grief on the cracked path we walk without the people we love. In that vein, yesterday, was to be a significant day. These highlighted dates, that of a month, of six months, or even a year… shouldn’t be any different. They are one and the same. They are yet another day without Dad. A day of emotional amputation and the deep pain of his absence. 

Although the days sometimes have a lighter flow. On some days, thanks to the somewhat unpredictable nature of grief, I can look at photographs of Dad. I can listen to his voice in the recordings I’ve made of him, and feel him surround me, as though I’m looking across the room and he’s sitting in his chair, applauding my memories. I can smile. I can stroke his image with my finger and feel him as strongly as the sun on my back on a warm summer evening. 

Yet on other days it is unbearably painful when my iPhone throws up an unexpected image of him, or I land on his photo while I’m searching for something else. On these days my chest is crushed with pain, and I cannot look in his direction because I know if I do, I will have to accept that he is gone. On these days, I refuse to climb out from under the fog for fear of facing the clarity of his loss. 

But yesterday was different. As I slept on the six-month anniversary of his death, he came to me, flowing through my veins, the surge of his unexpected presence temporarily extinguishing the forced absence. But it wasn’t entirely a good experience. In my dream, I had taken dad to a hospital appointment, and while I was helping him into a seat, he cut his leg. He was bleeding, so I sat him down, and said I would go and find a nurse. But I couldn’t find one, and instead I was sent on an intense labyrinth journey, lost and panicking as I ran up and down flights of circular stairs and in and out of heavy doors that opened into the busy streets of Belfast, and then Glasgow. I was fighting through crowds, my voice spent as I hollered unheard for help, all the while searching for a nurse, and then searching for Dad, because no matter what way I turned I couldn’t find my way back to him. Perhaps if you were nearby as I slept, you would have heard me wailing in the night as I clung to the fragments of his life. 

Eventually, I made it back to him, but he had fallen from his chair, and he had a gaping wound in his head. This time, he wouldn’t let me leave to find a nurse. Instead, he asked me to help him sort through his things and somehow, we were no longer in the hospital but together in his house, meticulously making our way through cupboards and drawers; like my siblings and I have been doing in preparation to hand the family home over to its new owner. In the dream, Dad was talking to me; smiling and chatting as we poured over memories and photographs, but I cannot remember a single word. Even the low murmur of his beautiful voice has been stolen from me. 

I woke up feeling horrified that I’d let my dad down. I was unable to help him. But I was also transfixed by the experience. I had managed to spend some time with him again, six months later. Anniversaries are a weight, an enormous burden, but perhaps they are also a gateway to time. This anniversary was a snippet with Dad. Today I feel I walked with him, however briefly. Tomorrow is another day without him, but I will endeavour to keep him by my side. The sound of grief remains cacophonous, its intensity inducing a sharp pain in the chambers of my heart, but I know his words are there, calling to me from the shadows, binding me to his memory. As I write this, my emotions refuse to centre or even remain consistent. I have cried, I have smiled, I have screamed at the injustice of being forced to accept this new life of sorrow. And above all I have immersed myself in Dad, refusing to forget, even after I have faced the darkest of nights. Anniversaries; days; night terrors; in each passing second the memories will continue to unfold. If these are all I am to have, then I will accept them greedily.