9th (month)

I, or we as a family, I'm sure, are hurtling towards the 'one year'; the one whole year since Dad died. It's only been 9 months since it happened but it feels like years, lifetimes ago, as if it didn't even happen in my lifetime.

Obviously we all know 'one year' anniversaries are difficult; you have to live through all the 'firsts' once before they begin to soften with time but I'm feeling it ramping up already, we are going headlong into Autumn and it brings with it now a non-stop catalogue of endings and firsts that I'm struggling to keep down.

Last weekend was one year since one of my favourite groups, Matrix, played at the Jug. It was an epic night and one of the last times we were all together as a foursome in the pub. That in itself is an emotional memory but it has added sadness now which is overwhelming. Next, we have the end of the Jug itself, then the last time I saw Dad in October before he left for his stay in Ireland (and from which, we know, he didn't return alive). Our last contact is too painful to think about; I was so dismissive of him, I was tired and stressed after a busy day at work and an Imogen to bundle out of my Mum's house and get home for tea. Me and Dad were never really demonstrative on occasions like this so I think I just said 'Bye, be safe and we'll see you when you come back'. So, so awful thinking back now. I can see it as clear as day and when I heard he had died, it just reinforced the feeling I had when he left that the last meeting we had was going to be our very last.

For me, the hardest part of the next few months will be the minute-by-minute reliving of December into January. Sadly, we won't have just one clear day to think about. In the months after he died, we were little detectives trying to piece together his final days, hours even and pin down when we think the accident actually happened; trawling through messages, voicemails, emails and bank statements to look for last signs of use. We will not only have the week he died but the day/evening we found out he died on the following Monday, being dragged out of bed by a knock on the door from my mum and brother, knowing even as I walked down the stairs to the door that he was dead, having to drive to my Grandma's house, drag her out of bed to tell her that her son was dead. No one wants to tell their Grandma that and it's all going to have to be relived all over again. Will it always be so acute, so painful? I guess certain anniversaries will be; the evening we found out will stay with me forever, as will the funeral, no matter how 'joyous' we made that occasion for him, a funeral's a funeral.

Although we as a family will be together in remembering these firsts and hopefully we can talk them through and ease the burden, we will each have separate days and memories that are harder than others. A problem shared though and it's no cliché that remembering the good times shifts the pain.

Was he ever really here though? All I have are memories and photographs, I cannot now imagine him here again, almost as if he would be out of place in our lives? His entire existence feels like a dream to me now, was he ever real, did I ever have a Dad, was he ever a physical presence or just an abstract being? The whole thing is so surreal. And so awful, still.