Guest blogs

Being here

Steve Vivardi writes...

I put this together for me, but wanted to share with others if they were interested.

Only 22 months since I lost my boy, Henry, to suicide aged 19 so I/we are still navigating new things, like a family holiday...

Being here.

Being here on this island with the sun shining and waves lapping at the sandy beach forces me to think. I look out to the sea, the view framed by rugged sandstone rocks eroded by time and tide. People - families, bobbing about in the water, face masks on as they explore the under world, invisible to us beach dwellers. 

And while thinking I feel a mix of emotions. Pleasure at being in a calm sunny cove, safe from the rougher waves on the open sea.  But, unsurprisingly darker feelings, sadness, cheated, lost, lonely, all from the awareness that you are not with me to be part of this. It’s not that your brother or mum are not important, they are and their enjoyment of this holiday is paramount.. after all who else do I have to share it with?  However, the realness of you not being with me, a co-conspirator, someone to share the subtle jokes or observations on people around us, someone to share the pleasures of exploring the under sea world, or fixing a photographers eye on the scenes around us and equally, just you being you, daft, funny, kind, stroppy, as you were and smart, entertaining interesting as you would have been - these are the reasons that this all seems too much to be able to deal with. I’m ok, I guess, by trying to plant my feet in the now, trying to anchor my feelings so that they don’t run away and I know that my feelings are the same as others in our early years of grief. I suppose I’m just not in the mood to join in; to let my hair down and give over to holiday silliness.   

I know that nothing is forever, apart from the loss of you, and that in time I may re-discover new ways of expressing my soul, but for as far as the horizon is away from me is about as far before that new time will reach me..  so I will sit on the beach, and let the waves lap gently while thinking kindly about you. Not as dark grief or wallowing in self pity, but as a way of adjusting to this new world on our first proper holiday without you.

I miss you my son..

Dad..xx