Fuck cancer.
I fucking hate cancer.
Today it’ll be seven months since you died. Today it’ll be eight months since you were diagnosed.
Back when you spent Christmas with us, none of us knew that a week later you would be diagnosed with leukaemia.
This is probably the hardest entry I’ve had to write so far. It’s the one I’ve been avoiding, dreading, for all the emotions I would have to deal with in its wake.
But you had made us promise. Made us promise that we would go on living. That just because your life stopped, ours wouldn’t. Made us promise to life your life for you.
To do that. To be able to keep that promise I have to deal with this numbing feeling of loss that I have.
Lucien misses you.
Rebecka misses you.
I miss you.
Fuck cancer, fuck it so fucking hard.
I’ve dreamt about you. In my dreams, you, Rebecka and I are all together, always laughing and having fun. Or at least I used to, until a couple of weeks ago when I dreamt that we were all sitting down to share a last meal because you were going. The dream didn’t tell me how or where, just that you were.
You know that place between sleep and awake, the place where you can still remember dreaming, that’s where I will always love you. That’s where I’ll be waiting. Tinkerbell
It’s been hard dealing with life, work… well, everything.
The same day you died was also the same day my position at Squiders, my previous job, was made redundant.
Suddenly I found myself needing to crawl into a ball to cry with Rebecka but couldn’t. Instead I had to take the deepest fucking breath I could and suck it up to find another job.
I started crying uncontrollably at the end of Furious 7, an otherwise entertaining but pretty pointless instalment in the never-ending saga that is Fast and the Furious.
Mostly I tried to keep it together.
I was in Cambridge interviewing for my position at Studio 24 on the day your funeral was held.
Interviewing aside, without a source of income we wouldn’t have been able to afford travelling to Finland anyway.
But everyone needs closure.
Everyone needs to be able to say goodbye.
So we held our own little ceremony in our communal garden. Right next to the little fairy village Rebecka had been creating and installing since finding out about your leukaemia. It had been her way of dealing with it.
My way to deal with it was to do something I hadn’t done for years. I started writing a song.
Years ago, I had written a different song for you, titled Last Curtain Call and it didn’t take long before I realised that this new song was its sequel, or perhaps in this case, its finale.
I’ve tried to record it, but I can’t get through it. You’ll have to settle for the lyrics for now, if I can ever record it.
Swansong
Everyone's watching,
Now that you're not there any more,
And all the light disappears from the room,
You left behind.
Everyone's whispering,
Is that the end of the show?
And all the smiles disappear from their eyes,
Curtains closed.
Spread your wings, and take flight,
Sour across the sky, pierce the blackest night.
My little swan flew away,
Swallowed by the dark grey,
Sea, can't see you any more,
But this is your call,
You last call,
Your swan song.
Everyone's listening,
To the faint echos of your song,
And all the sound disappears from the void,
You left behind.
Everyone's singing along,
To that tune you used to play,
And all the tears disappear from their eyes,
The end.
Spread your wings, and take flight,
Sour across the sky, pierce the blackest night.
My little swan flew away,
Swallowed by the dark grey,
Sea, can't see you any more,
But this is your call,
You last call,
Your swan song.
My little swan flew away,
Swallowed by the dark grey,
Sea, can't see you any more,
But this is your call,
You last call,
Your swan song.
In the end, I suppose we all have different ways of dealing with grief and loss.
You were the kind of person who, when you found out you were dying, started planning to make sure everyone else would be okay in your absence.
You were the kind of person who could illuminate an entire room.
Fucking cancer.
I miss you. We all miss you. But you will always live on in those little moments were we do things, because you did those things.
I love you Amanda.
I’ll see you in that place between sleep and awake.