Thursday 10 December 2015

The Sharp Knife of a Short Life

I can't put into words the last month of my life.

29 days ago I awoke to a call from my best friend, a conversation I will never forget.

And I went straight home. I got off the island keeping me safe and ventured back into the land that broke me once before. And I cried, and hugged, and held their hands, and together we remembered.


It's impossible to remember your own beliefs when something so cruel rips through your world. My ideal that the universe has a plan for us all, and that everything therefore happens for a reason, seems ridiculous, a mockery of the 20-something years they each had on this planet.


Seeing a coffin that isn't the same size as a person makes death and his power so much more real.

Seeing a family grieve without being able to bury their son makes the power of death so much more destructive, almost like he is laughing at them.


But I won't stop doing what I left Norfolk to do. I can't stop living my life, I can't turn back time and ask the Universe to take me instead of them, so I must continue. Others have stopped, their lives crumbled, their situations upturned. I hope to help them, to be there for them, but I can only do so much from this island.


And so we weep and we reminisce and we will never be the same again.




After everything I just want to hold the hands of the two boys I love the most in the world and beg that they never let go. I know I can't ask that of them; and I know that eventually one will let go. That knowledge just makes me squeeze their hands even tighter.