Dear all
What I'm about to write mentions both child loss and sucide. Please don't read if either of these things might trigger you or....if I'm honest- having a good day.
My six year old daughter was diagnosed with lymphoma in November 2022. Five months later she was taken from me. The only thing I take with me, even on days like today when all those tiny shitty things build up and become something large (probably just in my head) I cling to her final moments with a sense of love.
April the 2nd. She had next to no life in her. We laid on that hospital bed watching Bluey on her ipad. We must have watched 50 or 60 episodes in one go. She wasn't there. Not really. The cancer had wiped her out. When her mother, my wife, passed away from breast cancer in 2020 it was the same. The day before she was in the hospice making a joke that she was dying yet I was the one who had come in to see her with my jumper on backwards. The next day she wasn't there. Breathing. But. No. Her times was coming. I wasn't there when my wife left. I was in the hospice gardens with our daughter eating crisps and trying to make paper airplanes. Her own mother was there in the room with her. That's something.
So I knew my daughter wasn't going to make it. So I put the ipad down. Played the Disney soundtrack quietly through my phone and I just cuddled up to her. Her left hand in my right hand. Just spent the next hour or so telling her what we were going to do when we got out of the hospital. I think it was mainly talking about all the ice creams I'd let her eat. I don't think I noticed she wasn't breathing anymore. Or her hand wouldn't stay in mine. I just knew she had gone. Like something in my heart had just fallen out. I didn't get a nurse. Didn't call out for help. I just stayed with her. Not even crying. Just talking about ice cream, the sea side, what it was like to fly on a plane.
By the time the nurse came round she knee before she checked.
And while the grief eats away at me. Sucking my energy and forcing me to fight to not fucking kill myself. I remember that moment, not with sadness (everything after - everything that the cancer did to her - the cruel nature of it - that I won't forgive or turn to some slight hand of joy) but with the comfort that I was there. Holding her. Not crying. Not breaking down. Just quietly chatting one sided to her while a Disney soundtrack played. There is even this funny part of me that thinks - in whatever afterlife there is - she was thinking 'goodness me dad talks a lot doesn't he. He would not shut up while I was trying to sleep.' But I got to be there. Partly for my survivor guilt. But. In someway so she didn't have to go alone. And. If there is an afterlife I said goodbye so her mum could say hello to her.
And while the grief hangs around me - I'm still here. Trying. And on days like today when I thought I'd lost my job due to car breakdown but actually got to keep it. I feel like a winner. But it's also a day where I couldn't pay for my Sertraline. So I failed. But it was a day where I had a meal I'd cooked. Utterly simple. So that's a win for me. But it's a day I think - well I've run out of my prescribed tablets and tomorrow I'm without them till I get paid. So I failed. And while my body gets confused in the moments and lacks the medication - I'll try and hold on to moments of the strength I had when I was able to be strong enough to see my daughter to the best sleep ever