Two years on

We buried my Goldie two years ago today.

The collage I made for her funeral is still hanging on its temporary nail in our hallway; I should probably either decide that's really where it needs to be and hang it properly, or else decide what else to do with it and do it. I think it needs to stay really; it holds so many memories.

I can still hear her, you know. Shopping sometimes, I am sure she's squealing in the next aisle and then I remember she can't be. I dreamed the other night we were all running dreadfully late for something (not a rare occurence), and that we'd forgotten to pick her up. Things were getting impossibly tangled, and we were getting further and further away from collecting her. And then I woke up, and realised we weren't late for the appointment at all, and I still had plenty of time to call her carers and arrange things. And then I picked up the telephone and scrolled down to her number, and then I realised I didn't need to make that phone call after all...

Her phone number is still in my telephone. I thought I'd lose it when I switched phones, but somehow it travelled on the SIM card and is still there. How do you delete it? How do you not?

Today the Health and Safety Executive officer who investigated the circumstances surrounding Goldie's death phoned me with a date for the final part of the investigation. It'll be two and a half years since the accident, and the very last official part of her story.

It might be time to take down the order of service from its resting point on the kitchen window sill. Then again...

I wish, I wish Little Fish had had more time to get to know her biggest sister. I wish I had a decent photograph of all three girls together. I wish so many things about her last few months. Do I wish I'd known? An impossible question; if I'd known we would have so little time I'd not have agreed to her moving out; if she hadn't moved out she wouldn't have had the accident and so then she'd still be here.

Doesn't matter what I wish though; she did move out; I pushed hard for her move for so many reasons, and then she died. And then we all sat around and waited, and waited, and eventually we were allowed to have a funeral and then we buried her.

And in the three months between her death and her funeral I sat and hoped that having the funeral might help bring some kind of relief. And it did, sort of, but the pain and loss and separation was of course still there. And then I hoped the inquest might help. And then I hoped the court case might feel like some kind of an ending. And now this last piece of the official process, and I can't imagine that'll change things either.

It isn't all doom and gloom. I can't imagine Goldie being terribly happy amongst doom and gloom. In fact I know she'd have hated that; she didn't like people being upset around her, it frightened her. And I can't imagine her sitting quietly whilst people talked of her in hushed voices; she'd get the giggles and squeak, and shout out lines from her favourite stories.

Echoes in my mind - "That was absoLUTEly perfect, and Baby Beer SQUEAKED...Time to go home, come on, AMEN!"

I hope she's having fun today.
Tia