When Words Fail...

I wanted to write something for Bec’s anniversary.  Something moving and thoughtful and profound to commemorate her in a fitting way.  Something epic to reflect the enormity of the gap she has left.  Something comic to represent the humour she always brought to a situation.

But my heart won’t let me, this year.  My fingers can’t type all the thoughts in my head.  My heart can’t withstand the tsunami of emotion that breaks if I try to form words and sentences in poetry or prose.

I want to write her a letter, a poem, a song, an article about surviving grief, a reflection on being the only one left now, with no sibling to recall our shared history.  But I can’t.  Not now.  Not this year.

All I can do is look through photographs and smile and cry and remember what we had and regret what we don’t have now.  All I can do is try to join the dots and connect some of the jigsaw puzzle pieces that fall between the photographs.  The memories of blackberry picking and whispered shared-room conversations and showing-me-a-picture-of-the-new-boyfriend behind the scarves in Primark so Mum wouldn’t see.  And waiting by my phone for news of births and waiting by your bed for your final breath.  

I am greedy for more.  More memories –but they swirl and disperse like mist, not quite graspable.  I wish I could tie them down, remember properly the ordinary nights and the small-talk conversations that I could take so for granted then.  And more photographs – this hurts more.  That there will never be any more.  What I have in the archives is all there will ever be now.  I scour through them like a treasure hunter, searching for one last haul among the treasure he has sifted  a hundred times, hoping to catch a glimpse of her, an angle I haven’t seen before, her there,  in the background, smiling or yawning.  Her from angles she would be furious with me for posting on social media.  Why do we place so much value on photo-shopped perfection?  My favourites have laughter lines and double chins.  Skewed hats and dreadful hair.  I stash them hungrily and will always be searching for more.

I can’t write this year.  But I hope the photos will say the words I can’t.  Loved and missed.  More now than ever.  Two years now.  Unreal.

                      

Sharing giggles whilst she cuddled her first nephew

Mocking me, as she often did - this time about my hat!

Laughing at silly, family antics

Standard Christmas scene - excited child, yawning grandparents

An annual tradition - wearing our Christmas stockings

Auntie - Nephew snuggles

A very rare and precious shot of her with her beautiful boy, a selfie, sent to me on What's App

Rebecca Wright. 4^th January 1982-24^th September 2017
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