It made a change to have a Christmas card making session at the Write Out Loud and I wasn’t initially too fussed about it. I felt like I would’ve preferred to be writing but unexpectedly it gave me a pleasant surprise, and that was the conversations that took place between us that just wouldn’t have happened if we’d all have had our heads down. I didn’t need to say a lot, sometimes I preferred to be in my own little world, thinking about how to extend my two types of textured gold metallic card to make the concertina longer, but simultaneously listening to other people’s chats and dipping in here and there.
I’m also not one for making things on the spot so I thought it best to let the materials lead the way, focus on them and just go with the flow of it all and see what transpired. I didn’t even know who I’d make my Christmas card to. Everybody else looked so sure. To my brother perhaps? It was him after all that I was writing about in the group sessions, but it felt a bit unfair on the rest of my dead family, so in order of death, I dedicated my Christmas card to my grandma, my brother, my dog Hope and my dad – a concertina page dedicated to each. Irrespective of it being finished I shared it with the group towards the end of the session, a bit like show and tell – ‘it’s a card to my dead family’ I told them. They all loved the gold and the concertina design. And so did I but I wasn’t sure if I loved it enough to take it home and continue working on it. Personally I would have felt comfortable throwing it in the bin. I’ve done that a few times this year, made something in a workshop, pap, then consigned it to the rubbish. But this time round that felt a bit disrespectful. Okay! I’ll finish it but I’d best crack on as soon as I get indoors else it just won’t happen. So after distracting myself for the first ten minutes of arriving home and dilly dallying about I got the crafty bits stuck on, the hearts and the bells, then out came the Posca pens. This is fun, I was enjoying myself. And as I was creating I was holding my beautiful dead family in my thoughts and saw us all at my Grandmas. She had the tiniest flat in the puckerest of places, all compact and cosy, and I could hear so much laughter and jokes. The telly was on, sparkling with all the Christmas tosh, food was in abundance; cheese and crackers, boxes of chocolates, prawn cocktail with that thousand island dressing and a mega roast dinner cooking away, sending wafts and condensation into the heat-filled room. Snowballs were made and dispensed, so sweet and creamy, almost the alcoholic version of an ice-cream float, and we’d all be smoking. I can see it now, the flat filled with cloying cigarette smoke but it smelt and felt so good.
Everybody used to smoke indoors back then and indoors everywhere, not just your own home. People’d smoke in restaurants, on buses, on the Tube – insane!, and on aeroplanes, haha, I even remember smoking in the bath once upon a time, but that was probably a spliff.
I felt good after having made the card, glad I hadn’t dismissed it but it left me missing them all. I haven’t seen my Grandma since I was seventeen – almost 40 years ago!
The general topic of conversation in the Write Out Loud group was about what a tough time of year Christmas is for people, a time that really brings it home that our loved ones are gone. I have to admit that at that moment I wasn’t really feeling it, thinking how bar my dad my family all died a long time ago. I’ve had a bazillion Christmases without them now, what’s new? But then on my dad’s birthday this year it really hit me. He was born on December 29th, the same day as my mum, yep, strange but true, and check this out, me and my dad’s psycho girlfriend also have the same birthday! Anyway, whilst living in Spain, every year I’d come back and spend one year having Christmas with my mum and birthday with my dad and the next year vice versa and so on. I liked it like that, it worked, but since my dad died 5 years ago he’s not here to go visit anymore, to alternate with and I really miss it. I miss going to Clacton and hanging out with him. Christmases at his were absolutely mental, I mean I didn’t even get invited to sit and eat dinner with him and his girlfriend who hated me, nope, I’d have to make my own dinner which meant first going to the mega Tesco to buy it. I’d find myself wandering around the aisles searching for all the ingredients to make a roast only to look at them in the basket wondering what the hell I was doing, who cooks a roast for one? So I put them all back and go for bangers and mash instead. The first time I was so rudely snubbed I was absolutely gutted, literally, I felt like I’d been punched in the gut but it quickly became evident that his girlfriend’s dinner was minging and I wouldn’t have wanted to eat it anyway. My dad kept me company whilst I made mine (after they’d had theirs, of course), and we’d sit down at the table together, him telling me how good it looked and how he didn’t half fancy it. I miss those moments.
We never did much on his birthday either. My dad didn’t really do much of anything ‘cept recline on his recliner with the remote in hand. I can still hear the squeaking of the mechanism as he threw his skinny arse weight into it to throw it backwards and stretch it out or bring it forwards into an upright position, in which case it’d end with a clonk and a squeak. But he’d always be up for going on a little expedition, a little drive up to fancy Frinton, or more further afield to Colchester. We’d potter around the second-hand shops, actually I must have taken him to all of the second-hand shops that existed within a 12 mile radius of his house, we loved them, and we’d always manage to find him a seat to plot up on and he’d be as happy as to sit there, saying, ‘hello dear’ to the ladies who passed by, so cute. I’d be doing my Annika Rice stylie quick dash checking out the bric-a-brac, handbags, purses, picture frames, clothes and belts amongst bits and we’d have a harmony between us. If he felt a bit tired he’d stop off in a caff and have a cuppa tea, he loved his tea and I’d do just one more shop.
But then he took a turn for the worst and with a banging Zoom ‘party’ hangover that had gone on till 2:30am, the hospital woke me up at 6am on New Years Day to tell me I’d best get down there quick sharp, my dad wasn’t going to last much longer, he was on his way out.
Three days later he took his last three rattling breaths and then he was gone.
I was feeling all maudlin on his anniversary the day before yesterday so put on some music to fill the quiet space surrounding me and would you believe he sent me a little message, a song, one of 1,052 on my playlist that I’ve always called ‘his’ song, don’t know why, he didn’t even listen to it but after he died it just came to me with him in mind and I’d listen to it over and over. It put a smile on my face it did, and again, two days ago I listened to it over and over. My dad was with me.
Tiger.On.The.Rock 