 Yesterday I graduated from the University of Derby with an MA with Distinction in Writing for Performance, wearing a glorious pair of red patent leather DMs. Doing the MA was the first big decision I made after Tim died, and it was paid for with money from selling his business. I started it still in a raw stage of grief, less than 18 months after he died. I studied through the pandemic. My studies took me so far out of my comfort zone and I nearly gave up. I also found that it thrilled my heart and soul, and brought me joy at a time when I didn't think joy existed any more. It's left me thinking about how far I have come in the nearly four years since Tim's death. In a lot of ways, I am just the same person. Grief hasn't taken away who I am. However, in a lot of ways I am a completely different person. Grief has changed me. I have a different kind of confidence, honed out of grief and hard work and psychotherapy. I have more of an understanding of myself. I have more patience with people who hurt, but I have less patience for fools. I have a new partner, Dee, and am getting married, hopefully next year. But I still carry Tim in my heart and have his picture on my wall. I am still grieving. I will always grieve. But I am still here. And while I don't use the phrasing 'moving on', because I feel that implies leaving him behind, I will continue to move forward. 
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 Three and a half years ago, and four months after Tim died, I wrote this in a blog:
"I'm left in the limbo of Life v3.0. I don't want to be here. I liked Life v2.1. I don't know whether there's ever going to be a Life v3.1. But I've decided that if I could be brave before I'm going to be brave again." And it's not the 'Oh, you are so brave, I don't know how I would cope without [insert name here]'. It's a brave with the stitches showing and the glue not quite set. It's a broken and mended brave. It's a Kintsugi bowl repaired with gold brave, a brave that sees the beauty in the flaws. And while it's a kind of brave that doesn't always withstand a puff of wind, I'm hoping it might be the kind that will stand up to a storm." Last night I made a Kintsugi bowl, to celebrate where I am now. I have a Life v3.1, and she is planning on moving to Tideswell, to be with me. And that's just wonderful. And I know that I am now (and always have been) more than who I live with. I have completed an MA in Writing for Performance. I will have a performance staged next year. My freelance writing career continues apace. I still have the bees. This isn't the life I chose. But it's the life I'm going to celebrate "It's a brave with the stitches showing and the glue not quite set. It's a broken and mended brave. It's a Kintsugi bowl repaired with gold brave, a brave that sees the beauty in the flaws." I got caught up in a Facebook argument the other day (I know, so unlike me) on the topic of violence against women, and got comments from men along the lines of #NotAllMen and ‘I’m not violent so it’s nothing to do with me’. But it is up to all men to do something.
Listen to your partners, daughters, friends, mothers, sisters and take them seriously when they talk about what they have experienced. Ask them how they feel about what is going on. Find out how often they have been flashed at, touched, rubbed up against, shouted at, wolf-whistled at, followed, and how old they were when it first happened (early teens for me). Hear their stories about how they plan ahead getting back to their car, how they map out longer routes in their heads because they don’t feel safe on the shorter routes, how they don’t speak out because they feel afraid or intimidated, or how they walk in the middle of the road with their keys in their hands when they think someone might be following them. Educate your sons and grandsons in what is and isn’t acceptable and why. Help them see that women are their equals. Give them the tools that will allow them to make a difference. Call out your colleagues, friends or family members when they make sexist jokes, talk over women, put women down, cat call women, or keep chatting someone up when it’s clear she’s not interested. Don’t say ‘oh, it’s PC gone mad’. Don’t say ‘you can’t do or say anything these days’. If what you say or do upsets women or makes them uncomfortable, just don’t say it or do it. And don’t say #NotAllMen. Or respond that men get harassed too. I know they do. And I do care – I can multitask on caring. I’m just talking about women at the moment.  Tim was a... I don't know what. He would have described himself as collector, but was he a hoarder? When he died, the house was full of books and magazines. Airfix kits. Projects he was going to do. Newspapers he was going to read. Vintage things with sentimental connections. The first pandemic lockdown hit me really hard. My work dried up and I was more alone that I had ever been, in a house that I had fallen out of love with and was full of things that weren't mine. I fell close to the lowest I think I have ever been. It felt like a full stop. One morning, I made the decision to start sorting things. To move rooms around. To reclaim. And I started with the bedroom, the room where Tim had died. I cleared things out. Moved things around. Filled bags for the charity shop and for the bin. Painted the walls and the ceiling. Moved out spare furniture. And then I started to move around the house. Boxed up kits and cars for sale. Sold a room full of magazines on eBay, which took three van trips to clear. Painted and sorted and cleared. Until the house became mine. And as the rooms cleared, my head cleared, and I took the time to grieve. To take the first faltering steps forwards. So. It wasn't a full stop after all. It was a semicolon. Because after all, a semicolon is used when an author could've ended a sentence, their sentence, but chose not to.
 This is a personal as well as a scientific blog, and as such is being posted on both my websites. My BMI currently puts me into the obese category. I have often said that I don't have an issue with food – I just like it too much. I may be fit and obese, running half marathons, but I can still be damaging my joints and my heart, and risking type 2 diabetes.
But now, in the time of Covid-19, obesity puts me at a higher risk than the rest of the population should I become infected. How big is the risk? In patients under 60, obesity is a risk factor for hospital admission. In a US study, patients with a BMI of 30-34 were around twice as likely to be admitted to acute or critical care, compared with those with a BMI of less than 30. In patients with a BMI of over 35, the likelihood of being admitted to acute or critical care rose by 2.2-fold and 3.6-fold, respectively. Higher numbers of obese patients require invasive mechanical ventilation. The OpenSAFELY collaborative carried out a review of electronic medical records of patients in England. According to the results, having a BMI of between 30 and 35 (obese) increases the risk of hospital death by 1.3-fold. This climbs to 1.6-fold for a BMI of 35-40, and a BMI of greater than 40 (morbidly obese) more than doubles the risk of death (2.3-fold). Because the science is moving so quickly, this preprint has not yet been finalised or assessed by experts (peer-reviewed). The science behind the difference Being overweight generally makes it harder to breathe, and is known to be a risk factor in respiratory diseases such as asthma, sleep apnoea, acute lung injury and acute respiratory distress syndrome. There are a number of theories behind the increased risk of more severe illness and death related to Covid-19 in people who are obese:
Looking at the futureMy weight has gone up and down over the years. My biggest gains were in my thirties, and I lost three stone before I got married in 2009, giving me a BMI of 24. During my marriage and following bereavement, the weight went right back on. But it's not just me. The most recent Health Survey for England (2018) found that 67% of men, 60% of women and 28% of children were overweight or obese. As SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, is likely to stick around for some time to come, tackling obesity is going to be important. As part of COUCH Health's mission to improve 1 million lives by 2022, I have pledged to lose weight as part of a challenge alongside my friend and medcomms colleague, Ash Rishi. It has been up and down during the lockdown, but I'm going to try again, driven by the excess risk of Covid-19, using the evidence-based and NHS-backed Low Carb Program.  I need to place this post in some kind of context. It was written some days ago when I was feeling angry with the whole of the universe. I hurt, and I just wanted to bleed onto a piece of paper. I talked to a couple of very wise friends about whether to post it (you know who you are – thank you), and they both, independently, said 'why do you want to post it?' I've been thinking about that. And I think I want to post it to say that this is how I have been feeling, and I know I am allowed to feel like this. And if it's how you feel, then you are allowed to feel like this too. But I am determined. I have made it through bereavement to get here, and no virus is going to stop me now. In the words of Julian of Norwich, even though it doesn't always feel like it, 'all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.'  It was supposed to be my time. I worked to support my first husband so that he could achieve his dream of being a freelance music producer. We needed my income to help to buy the equipment, and also to buy food, to pay the mortgage and to feed the cats when he stopped his full time job. But before he became established and started making money, our marriage broke up, at least in part because there was someone he would rather be with. And during all this I got made redundant. But I kept on working. Tim found me, and picked me up. And I worked to support us, and we developed his bookshop together. It was our investment and our future, and he worked full time and then some, and then some more. But it needed my income as well as his to work, along with some very generous help from his parents, to make it work. He was so desperate for me to know that it wasn't just up to me, that he was doing everything that he could to make it right for us, and that he didn't want to let me down. Then, just as it became successful, and his name known nationally (and internationally), he died. Sometimes I worry that he worked himself to death for me. So, I worked all hours over the next couple of years to hide from grief, pay off debts and to build up a bit of money.  And then. It was supposed to be my time. I began the MA in Writing for Performance at Derby University, paid for by selling Tim's stock. I went to university where nobody knew me so that they could know me just as me. Not as a widow, unless I wanted them to know that. Not as my ex-husband's partner. Not as Tim's partner. Not who I had been. But as who I am now. I got a good grade for my first piece of coursework. I started psychotherapy in Derby to get my head round my grief and my depression. I did contract work so I knew I could have three or four paid days of work a week while I was studying. I started making contacts with theatres, planning how I could get known to the right people there. Booked solo trips and trips with friends to theatres to get a feel of how plays were written and performed. Saturated myself in audio drama. Started to get a feel of how I could craft my words for stage and radio.  And then it was the coronavirus' time.
I knew alone on a scale that I had never known alone before. My contract work dissolved, but I wasn't eligible for any of the government hand-outs. All the theatres shut so my planned trips were cancelled. All the scratch nights were cancelled. News started to come in of the smaller theatres that would never open again. The larger theatres that would struggle and only get through once they opened again (if they opened up again) on known writers and known plays. The theatres that would be unlikely to accept an unknown new writer. The imposter syndrome genie invaded my head, to ask me who I thought I was to consider that I could write well enough to ever be on stage or radio, and to tell me that the coronavirus was the universe's way of telling me that I might as well give in now. The university closed, though fortunately I had completed almost all my sessions for this academic year. And now I have no idea whether lockdown will be over by the beginning of the next academic year. And this was supposed to be my time. Not sure why I needed to write this today. But I did.
Tim and I had a fairy story. We met in our early twenties at a youth prayer group. I had other commitments – a boyfriend called Paul – and Tim sighed gently, tucked the candle he held for me in his back pocket, and we became friends. We stayed friends through thick and thin. Through his troubled times. Through his diagnosis with type 2 diabetes and his hospital stay for a rather scary bout of acute pancreatitis. Through my marriage falling apart and my descent into depression. And finally, through my divorce. I was separated for two years, though Paul and I continued to live in the same house, and over this time I fell in love with Tim. With his kindness and his humour, his ability to tell stories, his love for films and books and cars, and of course, his adoration of me. I have never been loved so much. Tim proposed in a motel in France, just as we were going to bed. I think he may have still been in his knickers and socks. I said no, but only because the divorce wasn't yet final. He proposed for the second time as we looked at a beautiful channel-set diamond and white gold ring in the window of a jeweller's shop. It's still on my finger. We married at the church where he was christened, and where his grandparents are buried. It was a day of sun and joy and light and family and friends, and he was my beautiful boy, his face full of happiness. Our honeymoon in Greece was sweet and quiet, with time just the two of us, and time with Tim's wonderful godfather and namesake Tim, and his lovely wife Aphroula. We moved to Tideswell, to the house where I still live, and he created his bookshop downstairs. I worked upstairs in my office, and we would talk many times a day. My favourite moments were getting up early to work and then snuggling back in bed with him before we both started our days for real. I also loved heading downstairs with a cup of coffee for him, and on Wednesdays for Fiona too. We would hug the warm mugs and talk about everything and nothing. Unfortunately, not all fairy stories have a happy ending. Eighteen months before our tenth wedding anniversary, the morning after a wonderful night out, and with no warning at all, Tim breathed for the last time. Despite CPR, and me pumping his chest as I screamed down the line at a wonderful phone handler, and despite work by indefatigable paramedics, he never breathed again. In a broken parody of our mornings together, I curled up next to his still warm body. I tucked my head into his neck. I inhaled his smell, and kissed the soft skin behind his ear. Fiona held my hand. Simon and Gillian, my dear friends, anointed him and sent him on his journey. And then I had to do the hardest thing I have ever done. I had to call his parents. I had to call our friends. I had to call my family. So many calls. Telling the same story so many times. Accepting the kind wishes, the love. Managing their grief as well as mine. The rest is numbness. Sleeping alone that first night. Organising a funeral and burial at the church in Somerset where we were married, with the ceremony carried out both times by the same old friend. Organising a memorial service and wake back here in Tideswell. Accepting a life where he was never going to be back, however hard I wished. It's now two years. I have the same life and a different life. I have my old friends, and I also have the friends I thought I would never have. The friends joined in grief for losing a partner too young. I am at university, studying something new. I am moving forward (I don't say that I move on) and I have travelled, run, written, laughed and learned. But I still grieve. I think I always will. I'm starting to sort out again. The lengthening of the days is bringing back a little of the energy and attention that has been missing for half a year, through a summer of lost purpose and a winter of anniversaries. Memories, dusty as ghosts, come rising out of dented cardboard and crumpled carriers.
My first poems and stories, hand-bound into books with board fronts and backs. Craft projects kept carefully by my parents over many years, and brought home when I cleared out their house for the last time. My parents' wills. Love letters from my ex from before we were married. Evidence of his love in my hand where it once was in both of our hearts. Pictures and paperwork from houses I bought with my ex, including the house in Doncaster that was to be the fresh start for a struggling marriage (I thought) and that turned out to be the step closer to its finish. Divorce paperwork. Condensing 14 years into just a few pages. Startling in black and white. The contract for the house in Litton Mill that was a river-lined retreat from the chaos and became the start of my life version 2. Tim's tenancy agreement from the house in Dadford where things began. Tim's statements and pay slips. Scraps of paper filled with his spidery writing. Notes left on my desk. Cards from him, loaded with so much love it spilled over the sides. The estate agent's flier for his beloved shop, now empty, and this beautiful house, now holding only half the love it did. The place where things ended after a decade filled with sweetness.  In August, September and October I will be running two half marathons and three 10ks in a Diabetes UK vest to support and publicise Diabetes UK. I chose this charity because my beloved husband Tim had type 2 diabetes. He was starting to lose his sight from the disease. Then he suddenly and unexpectedly died in February 2018 at the young age of 50 when his heart failed, a complication of his diabetes. The money from selling Tim's record collection has gone to Diabetes UK, and 10% of sales of his model kits on Ebay is going there too. Diabetes UK is a brilliant charity that provides support and funds research in type 2 diabetes, and I support it so that others might not have to go through what I have. There are also other reasons why I run. As well as raising money, running helps me live with my depression. It helps me fight grief. It keeps me fit. It shows people that not all runners have perfect runner's bodies. And it reduces my personal risk of type 2 diabetes, a vile disease. If you would like to make a donation, please go to my Just Giving page. But I know that not everyone can, and I have asked for money a number of times over the past few years. So if you can't donate, or don't want to, can you still spread the word about Diabetes UK? Support people you know with diabetes. If you are diagnosed with it, or with pre-diabetes, take it seriously. Type 2 diabetes steals your sight. It destroys your heart and your kidneys. It damages feeling in your hands and feet. It leads to amputations. It shortens your life. It takes you away from people you love. Think of me or wave me on when I run at: Leigh 10k - 11 August Wigan 10k - 1 September Great North Run - 8 September Stephen Price Memorial 10k, Ashton on Trent - 15 September Manchester Half - 13 October  I've just bought a new shredder, and now my office carpet looks like it's been hit by a cellulose snowstorm. I'm going through a huge box of papers and getting rid of anything older than five years.
There's a satisfaction of pushing sheets of paper into its tooth-lined maw, and filling paper sacks with shreddings for recycling. It is making me think of things that are no more. Cars, houses, cats, jobs. And marriages. There's a lot of Tim's paperwork in here. Payslips, bank statements, bills, receipts, car documentation. And always the challenge of seeing his writing. I can't keep it all but there is part of me that feels guilty getting rid of it, as if I am erasing him. There are some things I'm keeping, though. An old driving license. His invitation to his cousin's 21st birthday party. The receipt from a wonderful; holiday in the Loire Valley. Notes that he left on my desk. It's a balance between preservation and decluttering, and the most valuable things there are I still have. My memories of him. |
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