The days and weeks that followed were some of the most difficult I’ve ever experienced. I spent them in a daze, but even though I was numbed by grief, it didn’t stop the memory of Beth cutting me to the bone. Our home was full of pictures of the three of us. Her side of the bed still smelled of the coconut shampoo she liked. Her trainers lay in the hall, caked in mud from the last time she’d walked the ridge.
When we picture the death of a loved one, I believe we imagine the trauma, the sense of loss, the all-consuming grief, but we don’t consider the relentless mundanity of life. Meals need to be cooked, and the food to make them must be purchased. I found myself breaking down in the crisp aisle in Tesco because I happened to catch sight of Beth’s favourite flavor, sea salt and cider vinegar. I’d start crying while driving because the radio played a song she liked, “Tiny Dancer” or “Space Oddity.” Melodies of grief. Moments of bereavement. Looking back, I have no hesitation in saying I was a wreck. I wanted nothing more than to abandon my life of pain and join her.
But I couldn’t. I had to be brave for Elliot. I was trapped by obligation. I had a child depending on me, and as dark as things were, I tried to keep sight of how much he needed me. I attempted to comfort him, but where I was a wreck, he was sullen and withdrawn. The death of his mother had wounded him as deeply as it had me. I tried to reach him, but it was difficult because I found the time we spent together so very painful. I wanted to lessen his suffering, but there was nothing I could say or do, so I bumbled on, delivering a poor impression of a father.
I wonder now if I found my son painful to be around because I saw so much of her in him. He had her eyes and mouth, and the same softness of skin, and his smile always reminded me of Beth. It’s a poor excuse, but he was a living ghost of his mother, and I think I might have been too weak to cope with the breathing reminder.
The hospital didn’t inform me they’d lost Beth’s body immediately. They waited three days and finally told me after their internal investigation couldn’t find any sign of her. That added anger to my emotional storm. I couldn’t stop picturing Beth somewhere horrible, all alone in some rotten place. What if she was alive? What if I’d imagined her death and she was trapped somewhere, weak and desperate for my help? The loss of her body almost drove me beyond the brink, and I became obsessed with the idea she was still breathing somewhere and was calling for me. I hardly slept because my nightmares were plagued by this picture of her in need.
Somehow I managed to cling on, and over time the nightmares faded. The hospital promised to find her, but it never did, and a month after she died, Elliot, Ben, and I finally said goodbye to Beth at a small memorial we held in St. Leonard Church in Ipstones. Mrs. Hughes came too, because she lived so close, but we told friends and family we would have a proper funeral once the body was recovered. This was just a ceremony that would allow Elliot and me to express our grief, say farewell, and begin the process of piecing together our shattered lives. Like repaired china vases, we would never be quite the same, and would carry blemishes for the rest of our days, but I owed it to Elliot to try my best to fix what had been broken.
I’d like to pretend I was the one with the strength to see that we needed to find a new normal, but it was Ben. After the service, we went up to the ridge and walked the ancient rock formations behind Longhaven. We were silent for a long time, and Elliot shuffled ahead of us with his head bowed and his hands in his pocket, as dejected as I’d ever seen him. Had the service finally convinced him she was never coming back?
I know I had trouble believing it. I saw her everywhere, even in the black peaty soil around us. She’d been an avid runner, much better than me, and we’d jogged these paths together. I could see her now, alive with the rugged beauty of the place, taking great enthusiastic breaths as her strong legs propelled her along. That’s how I wanted to remember her.
“She used to love running up here,” I remarked.
Ben sighed and gave a sad smile. “I know it’s hard, but you’ve got to start living again. There are things you need to do with your life.”
“What things? What matters now? I can’t move on. The memories are all we have left,” I replied pathetically. “If we don’t stay here, in this moment, they will fade and she doesn’t deserve that. We’re the only people keeping her alive. Up here.” I tapped the side of my head and then placed my palms over my chest. “And in here. The pain is unbearable, but I have to learn to cope with it. I have to stay in this moment, because if I move on, she’ll be gone. That’s how she’ll die. We’ll kill her by forgetting. Each day, we’ll think of her less, and soon we won’t know the sound of her voice, or the smell of her hair. We won’t be able to remember her face; she’ll just be a vague shape, then an idea, a thought, and finally just a name we think fondly of. I won’t do that to her.”
My voice had been rising throughout. “I can’t, Ben. Don’t make us.”
Looking back, it’s fair to say grief had made me mildly hysterical.
He took my arm and pulled me to a halt. We gazed at each other for a moment, both with tears in our eyes, and then he gave me a hug. We’d never been tactile, but in that moment I understood his love for me. He wanted to take my pain away.
“I know what Beth meant to you,” he said as he stepped back. “I loved her too, but you can’t lose yourself in grief. You need to get back to work. Elliot needs to go back to school.”
Elliot had stopped a short way ahead and he wheeled round at the word. “I’m never going to school ever again. I’m never leaving Daddy. He needs my help. When I’m not with him, he cries.”
His words were like tiny daggers. He was being brave and putting on a front. He thought it was his job to look after me. That’s when I knew we had to find a new way to live. I’d made a promise to Beth to do whatever I could to make Elliot happy.
It is not the job of the son to look after the father.
It is never the job of the son to look after the father.
“You have to go back to school, little man,” I said.
“No!” Elliot replied before running away.
“Elliot,” I called after him, but he ignored me and kept going.
“All this grief isn’t good for either of you,” Ben said. “I know how much you loved her. We all did. But you need to get your lives back. Elliot needs to move on, and so do you.”
I look back on Ben’s words and realize he never once lied to me. He never lied, but he never quite told the truth, and I still can’t decide whether by keeping so much concealed he crossed the line into dishonesty. Did he dismember the truth? Or merely sculpt it? I don’t know whether to find him guilty or if I should forgive his good intentions. I struggle, not least because it was his economy with the truth that ultimately took me from my son.