Robins and reflections

This one's for you, Dad ❤️

Dec 03, 2023

Of anniversaries and birthdays

The first week of December is always a really strange week for me. I don’t mean it to be, but it’s a time of anniversaries and birthdays - remembering a sibling lost and celebrating a sibling still here, and reflecting on the passing of our wonderful Dad.

Himself tells me I always become quiet and reflective around this time. I don’t mean to go into myself, but I think my mind subliminally remembers that it is a time of intense grief, not just for me, but for so many others as Christmas shines a light on the loved ones that we no longer have with us.

Now that the intensity of early grief has passed for me, I also find it a really beautiful and calming time of year. I feel a peace and a connection with what really matters whilst the frenetic mayhem of trees and tinsel erupts around me. I don’t really get stressed by the trappings of Christmas. It’s a time where we become more expansive in our thoughts and creativity but also contract into our tight family unit. Christmas lunch is, after all, just a few more potatoes in the pot.

9 years ago today I got the call in the early hours of the morning to say my beloved Dad had died. It was a total shock, although not in the same way that Brian’s death was, being that my dad was 79, not 39 when it happened. That said, he was not critically unwell, so there were no warning signs and no opportunities to say goodbye. I don’t even know what the last conversation was that I had with him, although I still talk to him every day.

I take great comfort from the fact that he left this world just as gently as he existed within it, side by side with the love of his life. I wrote about his last night on earth in my book, Breaking Waves:

My own gentle and quietly radiant ‘socks on’ dad passed away peacefully in the middle of the night, when he was only seventy-nine years young, but his time had come, and it came on his terms. Our family had patched 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 of the patches were layered on – self-compassion overlaying what-if’s, acceptance threaded over regrets. 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 away, 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, 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 a cup of tea, and they did the Guardian crossword together like they did every night, before turning out the light. He never woke up.

The next day was my sister, Brenda’s birthday. I’m not sure exactly what she’s supposed to do with that…

When robins appear…

We all have things that remind us of lost loved ones - songs, films, snatches of memory - (more on that next week), but one that I know holds true for me and so many others is the sight of a robin. Every time I see a robin it feels like Dad has come to say hello. For centuries the robin has been a symbol of a ‘messenger’ for lost loved ones. An indicator that they are at peace and a sign of new beginnings.

They are beautifully present at this time of year, and every time I see one I feel like it’s a nod from Dad, just saying hello, and that everything will be ok. I feel his calming presence and I say hello back. I had a good old natter with this one earlier in the week. It makes me smile every single time.

The Selfish Giant

Last week mum and I went to the cemetery where Dad lies with Brian, under the shade of a beautiful oak tree. We came to decorate their little garden for Christmas. A robin for each of them.

When I first saw that glorious oak tree it took me back to a book from my childhood, one that stayed with me forever, but I couldn’t grasp its name or author. I described it to Brenda - ‘ok, I need to find the name of this book - it’s about a grumpy giant who won’t let children play in his garden, and then there’s something about Jesus in a tree..?’.

‘Aah’, she said wisely - ‘it’s The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde’.

YES! Yes. It actually is. She’s strange like that - she’s a bit of an omniscient cross between Mr Miyagi and Yoda, although far less wrinkly.

The Selfish Giant is the most beautiful story ever (spoiler alert - the giant dies at the end). A gnarly, grumpy giant returns from a long stay away with a friend to find his garden overrun with children. It is filled with trees, flowers and birdsong and the children play there after school, filling the grounds with joy and laughter. So far so Disney. This really isn’t the Giant’s bag however, so he builds a Trumpesque wall and puts signs up to keep the pesky kids out. The flowers wither and die, the birds stop singing and the garden falls into an eternal winter.

One day the giant hears a faint sound of birdsong, and peeks out the window to find that the children have snuck back in. The garden begins to burst into spring…and his heart begins to melt as he realises how selfish he has been - you get the gist, right?

Although, in one corner of the garden it is still winter, and there is a small boy trying to get up into a tree, and he cannot reach it. When the giant comes to help him, all the children run away terrified, except for the little boy who is so overrun with tears he doesn’t see the giant coming. The giant gently lifts the boy into the tree, the tree bursts into blossom, the walls come down and the children flood back in. We are all VERY happy with this turn of events.

The giant loves to come out and be with the children, although he never see that particular small boy again and this makes him very sad. Years pass…and when the old and weary giant comes to rest under the tree for the final time, the boy appears and says something along the lines of ‘once you let me play in your garden, today you shall come with me to mine’.

Jesus in a tree!

This story has stuck with me my whole life, so much so that I carried this picture all the way back from Hong Kong when I laid eyes on it, and it is on the wall in my front room to this day.

When I go to the cemetery and see the oak tree that fans out its branches over Dad and Brian I feel a great comfort. On its other side it gently bows over Brian’s best friend Alan, and his own Dad, Ray. They remain connected to this day through the whispers of the leaves. I don’t know quite know where the ‘faith’ of my Catholic upbringing sits these days, although I hold a great spirituality, and I like to think that little boy is sitting in the tree watching over them all.

Christmas Tree Day

On the first weekend of December, we have one of our favourite days of the year - Christmas Tree day. I think that no matter how old Taz and Fiver are, this will always be one of our grounding family traditions. It often falls on Dad’s anniversary. Mum always joins us, and just as we decorated Dad & Brian’s little tree last week, we join in together - although I must say we don’t go for understated or stylish. My best friend described it as the Christmas Fairy vomiting all over our tree. That’s about right. We just chuck stuff at it - lights, tinsel, beads, crackers, orange slices, each other.

It’s chaotic, warm, sparkly, vibrant and totally absent of rules and process. It really is a state and I could not love it more.

In a break from decorating, Taz asked me to teach her how to play snooker - so fabulously random. We have an old pool table we’d unearthed from the garage, so as I tried to remember the order of the balls (thank you Chaz & Dave - I got it from replaying ‘snooker loopy’ in my brain), I taught her the game. She whipped me with a score of 71.

It reminded me of the wonderful evenings we spent as children watching snooker with Dad. How we’d all gather round, marvelling at Alex Higgins, finding Cliff Thorburn strangely attractive (although I can’t speak for Brian on that one), and wanting Dennis Taylor to be our favourite uncle. I told Taz stories of Hurrican Higgins, and then Whirlwind White, and explained to her the concept of a ‘147 break’. ‘Show me one’ she asked.

Youtube gifted us Ronnie O’Sullivan, and we sat mesmerised as our own family, watching the magic of snooker, experiencing the unique togetherness that sport can bring. Having reposted the piece from my book above - I can’t help but wonder if it was the same game that Dad watched on his last night.

Dad was a snooker champion in his own right - how he would have loved to have taught Taz himself.

The pull of the sea

When I find myself in this deeply reflective place, I am drawn to the sea more than ever. Sometimes Brenda and I head down and eat hot chips and drink tea on a blustery beach. Sometimes I go with my swim girls and we take a freezing dip and walk along the pebbles.

Yesterday as we headed down for an early swim, the sea was calmer and clearer than I have ever seen it. It was extraordinary. The sun shone along the water, and I swam out following the stream of light, the sun on my face as the water held my body and soul, my friends holding my heart. It was a deeply connecting experience.

I perhaps stayed in the moment too long, as it was absolutely fecking freezing and took my body some time to recover, but after a hearty brunch, I headed back down to the water’s edge to be caressed by the sound of the waves (interspersed with some lads running into the water and screaming because it was apparently cold - in December - with the air temperature below zero). I threw pebbles into the stream of light and felt so wonderfully warm inside.

On the weekend I signed my book deal, experiencing such an extraordinary range of emotions, I received some lovely messages from my cousins and Dad’s brothers telling me how proud he would have been. That absolutely meant the world.

This one’s for you Dad. Our hero. Always and forever ❤️

Happy Birthday B

This morning, Himself made me a mini fry up - complete with Irish soda bread. It’s like the Universe is playing with me. This afternoon we’re going out as a family to celebrate Brenda’s birthday - on Dad’s anniversary. It’s so important that we celebrate her, and allow her birthday to be a thing of joy in the middle of this strangest of weeks. It’s Brian’s birthday just six days later. They would get one weekend each - this one is for her.

It’s just us girls left now from our original unit of five - me, mum and Bren, and I’m so grateful to have them both. Today as we celebrate Bren, we will remember, love and laugh, and raise a glass to our boys.

I’ll walk down to the restaurant to meet them with my own unit of four. Himself, who exudes calmness and is gentle like my Dad, Fiver with her deep heart and eyes that pool with wisdom beyond her years, and Taz who is basically a reincarnation of Brian. Our shared DNA bringing us all together as a whole.

I reckon I might even see a robin along the way.

How is December for you? Especially if you have lost loved ones?

Do you have something like robins that come and say hello?

Do you feel drawn to a place like the sea when you need to reflect, remember and grieve?

I’d really love to hear.