Exclusive: Breaking Waves Chapter 3

Drowning

As the copy edits come to a close and Breaking Waves is hurtling ever closer towards actual publication, I am sharing an exclusive excerpt from each of the 10 chapters between now and September, when it will become available for pre-order.

I have previously shared excerpts from Chapter 1: The Shape of Water, and Chapter 2: The Taste of an Iceberg. Today I would like to introduce you to Chapter 3: Drowning.

This is for you 🌊💕

Chapter 3: Drowning

This chapter is really the crux of the whole book, as it covers the day that my life cracked into two, the day of my brother Brian’s tragic death. The narrative arc throughout the book is one of hope in how we survive these cataclysmic moments, and how our connection to nature, to ourselves and to each other can provide a lifeline when we are drowning.

The excerpt I have chosen to share is not the one of my brother, but one about my dad. I have chosen this because it reflects upon the unpredictable nature of grief, and how it is not always tumultuous and searing, but can sometimes be gentle and necessary. There is no one way to grieve.

Photo by Brendan Stephens on Unsplash

I hope you enjoy it, I’d love to hear your thoughts 🫶

“At a memorial service on a December night a couple of years after Brian’s death I was sat next to my dad in a typically coldly ornate Catholic church. The grief was still raw, and Dad and I were sandwiched between Mum and my sister, all wrapped in scarves despite the church being heated, due to that peculiar science specific to church radiators where they can only emanate heat to a radius of one millimetre. As we waited for the remembrance part and the highly emotional reading of Brian’s name, Dad pointed to something on the church newsletter that was folded into the pew alongside the hymn books. Amid the psalms, notices, requests for church cleaners and fresh obituaries, there was a tribute to a ‘Mrs Pudding’. He didn’t look at me, he just stared straight ahead, and pointed at the name with his finger before giving in to a gentle shoulder chuckle. That was it. The sob that was waiting to be released in my throat lurched out as a snort. It morphed into a howl of laughter worse than anything from a lifetime of school Catholic assemblies. Lip biting and digging my nails into my thighs were not going to cut it. I sunk my face into my scarf and let it out, guffaws disguised as sobs, shaking, tears of laughter and snot helpfully compounding the hastily constructed image. Other churchgoers baffled at my outpouring of ‘grief’, Mum gently reaching to hold my hand as I was so ‘distressed’. Dad, quietly chuckling, was absolutely delighted with himself. There’s no doubt it was the highlight of his church experience.

This gentle and quietly radiant hero of mine passed away peacefully in the middle of the night, when he was 79 years young, but his time had come, and it came on his terms. Our family had stitched itself together again, somehow sewing ourselves in and around the faded quilt pieces of my brother’s life. A patchwork of memories, heartache, celebrations, joy and loss. Some were layered on, self-compassion overlaying what-ifs, acceptance threaded over regrets, with everyone contributing their own pieces, distinct and incoherent by themselves, yet coming together in an oddly comforting tapestry of our collective experience. The night my dad passed, he had his favourite meal for dinner, presciently eschewing their standard M&S Meal for Two for a good old Irish fry up complete with soda bread to accompany his ever-present cup of tea, something I had rarely known him do. He watched some sport on the TV – we think Ronnie O’Sullivan in the snooker final – and then accompanied my mum to bed, with his bedtime cuppa, and they did the Guardian crossword together like they did every night, before turning out the light. He never woke up.

Sadly, I can’t actually remember when I last saw my dad alive, so unexpected was his passing, but the last time I saw him at all was in the same funeral home where I had visited Brian all those years before, and I held his hand one final time. My mum once told me that all their lives, whenever they walked down the road or went to the cinema, Dad would always hold her hand. Even if they were cross with each other, he wouldn’t break that connection. One paw over another. I smiled as I gently took his hand. He lay there clothed in the casual/formal wear of that generation, slacks and a short-sleeved shirt. His bottom half was covered by a blanket, so I don’t know if he had shoes on, but I just know he was wearing socks. As I left, I felt that something in the parting image wasn’t right. A couple of hours later, I realised what it was. The funeral attendants had buttoned his stripey short-sleeved shirt all the way up to the top and it was pinching his neck. He never did up his top button or wore a tie. He always had that top button open with a tiny tuft of grey chest hair poking out. I called the funeral parlour; I needed to go back, I needed to open that button. I needed them to reopen. Reopen they did, I loosened that button, and I’m sure he would have smiled as I saw him for the last time as he should have been.”

Chapter 4 excerpt next week…if you like this, please do share! It means the world 🙏

As always,

Love & lemons 💕🍋

Em xx