Family & Relationships
Thoughts and memories about my family, it’s past and it’s future.
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Dear Jen
A year has passed since you left us. I have been dreaming of you lately, odd childhood moments all smushed together into an incoherent ramble that I awake from feeling confused and sad. A year of grief rolling over my bones, picking at my skin. Jagged and sharp in shape and form. I am trying…
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Merry Christmas
Whether you celebrate, or not. Are with family, or not. To those who have difficult relationships with your family, those who are struggling, give yourself permission just to survive this week. Be kind to yourself. It’s just another day after all. Or not. I hope this festive day finds you well, or well enough.
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A year in the past
The dusty, decrepit past slides out of view as a brighter, fresher, more inviting future beckons you over the horizon. So is the story the New Year likes to tell, a narrative that talks of new beginnings, better versions of yourself, I know, it’s just the earth moving around the sun, but that doesn’t stop…
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Legacy
What am I leaving behind? Looking back over the past year, the most tiring part, physically and emotionally, was clearing out my Mum’s flat. Whilst Mum and Dad had done a LOT of clearing out before they downsized, it doesn’t take long to build up more stuff, more detritus. Even after my Dad passed and…
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The shape of grief
It would’ve been my Dad’s birthday yesterday, he would’ve been 79. I didn’t post about it yesterday, more by happenstance than planning, but I did think about him and one thing struck me. I think more about my Dad on any given day than I do about my Mum or my sister. Now, I’m not…
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Songs that last
Both my parents were musicians, my Dad played guitar and banjo (and once appeared in his folk band on the same bill as The Corries), my Mum played the piano, both sang in local and national choirs; vague recollections of my Uncle conducting them both in Paisley Cathedral for a performance of Handel’s Messiah, a…