August 14th – 16th 1997
The next weekend we drove to Gloucestershire for a family reunion at Geoff’s house.
And if I didn’t get any help with the children during the visit, at least I was becoming used to that now. This time there were no places laid at the table for Emily and William, which seemed odd (was I expected to have fed them first, or something?).
Then, just as the meal arrived, William chose exactly that moment to throw up. It wasn’t the best thing for anyone’s appetite, or the general mood.
Jenny’s name wasn’t mentioned once in the entire time that we were there. I had resolved to talk about her whenever I could, and to ask why they didn’t.
But finally I was so busy running around that there simply wasn’t the time or the chance to raise it.
How could any of us not think about Jenny?
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Categories: Chapter 32 · Chapters 30-39 · bereavement · breast cancer · children · family · grief · hope · love · recovery · relationships · single parents
Having made that decision to keep plugging away from where I was, what could I really expect from life and from my work?
I had always been ambitious before, but did that matter now? If I’d asked myself those questions at the beginning, I still had no answers now.
By staying in the same job, I wasn’t allowing my circumstances to define my career, but I knew that my bosses’ perceptions certainly would. It would still be hard to travel, and I wouldn’t be top of the list for any promotions ahead.
In a small company, opportunities don’t come along that often, and missing just one could make a huge difference to a career.
Maybe it seems crazy that I worried about my job then, after all that had happened. But I did feel vulnerable.
I was constantly living on the edge of the commitments I could offer the company, and my family, too.
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Categories: Chapter 32 · Chapters 30-39 · bereavement · breast cancer · children · family · grief · health · hope · parenting · recovery · single parents
It was contradictory that I was angry, craving sympathy for my situation, whilst at the same time I felt that danger of defining my life by those circumstances.
By this one thing that had gone wrong.
It was a really big problem, even if I tried to think of it then as just a bad year or so before I got my life together and back on track.
I knew that raising kids on my own for twenty years wouldn’t be remotely easy, however much help I received.
But six months were behind us now and the next six would surely not be quite as hard.
And it seemed so unfair to say it, but without Jenny to look after as well, in some ways those last six months had almost been easier than the six months before.
Finally, I decided to stay in my present job, living with the kids where we were.
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Categories: Chapter 32 · Chapters 30-39 · bereavement · breast cancer · family · grief · health · hope · love · recovery · shock · single parents
August 11th-15th 1997
Whilst I was staying, my folks had said, look, it’s been a good break for you this week, and we enjoy looking after you and the children. So why don’t you think about moving up here, so that we could help more often?
But that would mean giving up my job, I said. Yes, but you could do other things, they said. You could work in a bank, or as a manager somewhere.
Maybe you could even teach at your old school, and the kids could go there too.
It was a tempting idea, which sounded more attractive the longer I thought about it.
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Categories: Chapter 32 · Chapters 30-39 · bereavement · breast cancer · children · family · grief · hope · recovery · shock · single parents
So what did I do?
I rambled something shakily about staying in, about not chasing around night clubs these days.
It was a pathetic performance on my part, and what an opportunity to miss. There was nothing to lose by asking, even if there wasn’t any real potential there. But who could tell?
Megan is a lovely girl, bright and cheery and lively, with fantastically appealing eyes. And a great body.
So why, exactly, did I shy away from that perfect chance, right there? An evening together, if nothing more – it would have been great.
And wasn’t that just what I needed, just what I really wanted, for Chrissakes?
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Categories: Chapter 32 · Chapters 30-39 · bereavement · breast cancer · friends · grief · health · hope · recovery · relationships · shock
Back in Stratford the following week, I was even more appreciative of my folks’ help with the children.
I kept myself to myself, staying at home, just going out to the shops and to play golf. It wasn’t very thrilling, but I wasn’t looking for excitement just then.
But one day I decided to have my hair cut. The place I go to in Stratford is a bustly salon attached to one of the big hotels, and I’ve got to admit that the girls there are very good looking.
I can still remember a bleach-blonde Amazon called Tara who cut my hair when I was a teenager.
She wasn’t quite beautiful, not in the classical sense, but she was strikingly tall, with wonderfully long flowing hair which I’d watch as she worked. And Tara and those locks formed a pretty big teenage fantasy at the time.
I was hardly a panting fifteen year-old these days, but I was still pleased to see that I’d been assigned to Megan that morning.
She was pretty, too, and as I sat there thinking, she made a big impression on me. It was the thick dark hair, the bright eyes and smile, the 1960s eyeliner and Biba lipstick, that was it.
No – it wasn’t that, of course it wasn’t. It was really the tight jeans, the closely-fitting black tee shirt and all that lay behind them.
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Categories: Chapter 32 · Chapters 30-39 · bereavement · breast cancer · friends · grief · health · hope · love · recovery · relationships · shock
August 14th – 16th 1997
Jenny’s name wasn’t mentioned once in the entire time that we were there. I had resolved to talk about her whenever I could, and to ask why they didn’t.
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