Lightning Could Strike..

It is weird how as people, our lives can be so effected by someone else.

Whether it be the love of your life sweeping you off of your feet, the birth of your child instantly maturing you, someone doing you a kind deed, or even something such as someone’s creativity or talent moving you emotionally.

We all have impacts on those around us. Even if we do not necessarily realise that we do.

Pieces of music, a singer’s voice, a piece of cinema, acting in television, film or stage, an artist’s vision, or even sporting brilliance can absolutely captivate you. For me, it is music and film.

The emotions that one can feel when they are attached to something creative like these forms of entertainment can range so much, you can be elevated up to the highest level, or crushed all in something you have observed.

I can be taken away somewhere by a great film, or a piece of music/certain song can just change my emotions completely. As a man approaching his 33^rd birthday, I feel more emotion towards certain songs and movies now, than I ever have.

The other night, Meet Joe Black was on television. A film I must have seen ten times or more. Each and every time, there are certain scenes, where the score absolutely breaks me. The soundtrack removes me from watching the film, removes me from real life, and instead plays out emotions in my own movie in my thought process.

In the film, Death who has taken the form of a young man (Brad Pitt), who falls in love with the daughter (Claire Forlani) of the man he has asked to show and teach him about life (Anthony Hopkins). Earlier in the film, we see the young man and the daughter meet in the coffee shop, with a clear chemistry between the two. There is a clear dilemma at the goodbye. We see them both repeatedly looking over their shoulder and spinning on their heels, both wanting but reluctant to go back to the other to confront the emotions they feel. All before going their separate ways, which leads to him being hit by a car before Death takes his body. (Apologies for the spoiler, but the film is nearly twenty years old – so I am assuming you have seen it already!) 

We have all had similar dilemmas in our lives. It those crossroads moments in life. Go one way and life goes in a certain direction, go the other way and life goes completely the opposite. It is the choices we make when we encounter these crossroads, which can define the rest of our life. For me this film, this music reminds me of my crossroads in my past, which have led me to where I am now.

It perfectly captures the essence of the story that it is telling somehow. The love, the fear and the pain. We have all been in love, and we have all been bereaved. Somehow both things come to mind when I hear this. 

I think of my girlfriend. That if I hadn’t have spoken to her that day at the train station in London, my life wouldn’t be what it is now, and my beautiful son wouldn’t be here 8 years later. I think of my past loves. I think of the impact each have had on my life and the road that my life has travelled down. For example, if one of my exes hadn’t cheated on me, I wouldn’t have ended up going to university. I wouldn’t have met by best friend etc. Her action lead to my immediate reaction to remove myself from that place in my life. It was a crossroads moment.

In the same breath, that one piece of music, makes me think of the people who are no longer with us. I mostly think of both of my Grandparents. I wish they had been in my life longer. I wish they would have seen the man that I grew up to be.  My grandmothers were beautiful, hardworking, proud, determined, family women. They gave everything to raise their family and protect their loved ones.  My grandfathers worked to the bone, had great humour, kindness, generosity and were perfect gentlemen. These are the qualities I want to inherit and teach my son. The character played by Anthony Hopkins, who is tasked with showing Death life on earth,  is everything you would expect a proud family man to be. He wants to know he has done his best and that his family will be ok without him. He wants to use his crossroads to take the time to be with those around him.

I see the same qualities in Hopkins character, as I do in my own father. I know he is soon to be approaching a crossroads in terms of his treatment for his illness. He is eagerly trying to ensure that everything is sorted for the rest of us, but all we want is for him to be healthy and happy. For him to spend as many healthy and happy days with our mum. We want him to live for now, because we know how he approaches whichever road he decides to go down will have long term effects on the rest of us. 

This one piece of music and even the film itself makes me think of all of these things. However, when I sit back and really consider what that emotive music does to me, I think overall it makes me think of love and life. It makes me realise that you have to live for the day. Crossroads in life will come and go, but it is the actions of now that really count.

And like the young man says… ‘Lightning could strike’.

The piece of music I mentioned is the first 5 minutes of That Next Place composed by Thomas Newman.

The Permanent Solution...

Any bereavement is hard to deal with. It rocks you in so many ways, and can do so continuously, striking like hammer blows over the years. In my case, my emotions regarding my Uncle’s death have re-emerged over the past few years, and I am feeling emotions that must have been locked up deep inside me.

I think that this is down to various factors.

Firstly, I was a child when he passed away. Time perception was different back then. A child year seems to be an adult month. Our sense of time changes as we grow older. The intervening years have been my developmental, grown up years. Lots of water has passed under the bridge since Charlie died. I have matured and had to deal with other bereavements, stresses, struggles and finding my own path in life. It is only now as I am rapidly approaching the age that he passed, that my feelings to his passing are re-emerging. As a child I was able to accept that grown-ups will die at some point. I was told that he had a heart attack, and that seemed logical to me at the time. It wasn’t til I approached adulthood, did I find out and was able to comprehend the darker truth.

“When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things”

Another factor has to be that in clearing out my Grandfather’s property after his death three years ago, I found my Uncle’s suicide letter. 

Having only ever heard my parent’s perspective on the reasons they believed led to his decision to end his life, it was a roller-coaster to quickly read his letter, all at the same time as being emotional towards the passing of my Grandfather.

My head was spinning, my heart was racing and it was hard to focus as I began to read the actual letter that was found alongside my Uncle all those years ago. Addressed to ‘Mum’ the words on the paper in my hands were the last thing to go through his mind. His despair and depression was clearly evident. He blamed himself for everything that had happened. The breakup of a relationship. The breakdown of a business. The financial ruin, and the disappointment he saw himself as. The letter apologised to his parents, and instructed my grandmother to pass on messages to his friends. But there was no mention of his brothers. No mentions of me, my sister or his other nephews and nieces. No mention of other family members. This hurt immensely when reading the letter. It made me think that on the night that he set about his task to end his life, the wider ramifications of his actions were not present in his thought process. In many ways, it made me see him as very selfish. It made me blame the bottle of alcohol that he was clearly consuming as he wrote the letter. It made me think that if he hadn’t have been drinking that night, he may be with us now.

But that was naive and of me. It took some time to reflect and study more about the subject of depression, and learn more about the man that in reality, I only knew as a playmate. Mental health issues are widely ignored even now, and back in 1993 when my uncle took his life, I can’t imagine opening up to peers, or seeking help was that common. Instead as typical south London male, he wanted to get himself out of the predicament he was in, and not unload his issues on other people. His decision to end his life was not a spur of the moment thing. He had planned his method. This was not going to be a cry for help. This was going to be a permanent solution to his pain.

Finally, the fact that I still hate the fact he chose that permanent solution, to what I now see 23 years later as an illness that can be helped. I hate the fact he didn’t reach out for help. I hate the fact that he didn’t think of his three brothers; about how this would send their world crashing down around them. I hate the fact that my Nan blamed herself fully for the loss of her son. I hate the fact that she never recovered from his passing. I hate the fact that my sister, my cousins and I missed out on getting to know him as a man. I’m gutted that we never shared a pint and laugh together. At family events, I often think that family members who have passed away are with us, watching us have fun and live life. I hope they are proud of us.

The Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM – www.thecalmzone.net) believe that there are social and cultural barriers which prevent men from speaking out. That state that men do not feel comfortable expressing feelings and emotions. That men think they are expected to be strong at all times. I certainly agree with this statement in regards to my uncle. 

I wish he could have opened up to someone. He would have been 65 just after Valentines day. I wish we could have shared a pint in celebration.

Forever In Our Hearts..

It was Thursday July 1^st 1993, my 10^th birthday, when the phone rang. It was Uncle Charlie, my dad’s slightly older brother and best man. 

After a few minutes on the phone with Dad, I was called to come to the phone as Charlie wanted to say ‘Hello’. Charlie wished me Happy Birthday, and asked me if I wanted to go to Chessington World of Adventures theme park at the weekend for my birthday present, like he did the summer before.

But this year I was busy on the Saturday, and my parents had arranged a football party for me and my friends on the Sunday. So I told Charlie that I had my party coming up, and that he could come to that instead. After a few more seconds of chat, I quickly was told “no worries, I have got to go now, see ya soon” and after saying good bye, I hung up the phone. I soon went back to my Sonic the Hedgehog, unknowing that this would be our final conversation.

Sunday afternoon finally arrived. July 4^th. Party day! I was sitting in my living room, in my new football kit. My socks were pulled up and I was ready for action. I was full of excitement and anticipation for my party that I knew we would be leaving for in twenty minutes time. My sister was upstairs, Mum was in the kitchen, and Dad was in their bedroom, directly above the living room. The phone rang.  Mum answered it from the kitchen and you could tell there was immediately something wrong. At that moment the house was silent. I can’t recall if the TV was on, but if it was, I couldn’t hear it. Mum rushed upstairs to the bedroom and said for my sister to go downstairs immediately. Mum closed her bedroom door shut behind her, something which never happened before or again after. The house had never been so quiet.

From the living room my sister and I could hear muffled talk from inside Mum and Dads room above us, and within a few seconds I could hear the moment my Dad broke down after being informed that his brother and best friend was no longer with us. 

I am not sure how much time passed, but Mum came down with tears in her eyes and rushed me and my sister to get to the car, ready to go to the party. I got my stuff ready and as I was leaving the living room, my dad appeared in the door way; “Have you heard?” he said to me, with tears in his eyes and cracks in his voice. The man who had been He-Man to me my whole life stood in front of me distraught. This was the first time I had seen him vulnerable. The first time I had seen negative emotion from him. I hadn’t heard the news that he had just been informed of, but I immediately started to cry, as I knew it was something life changing that had happened. I didn’t even know who that phone call had been about, and to this day I do not know who was on the other end of that phone.

But I knew life was about to change.

Mum took me and my sister to my party. I can’t remember the journey at all. I do remember that I played footy that day like a boy possessed, and have clear memories of the goals that I scored that day. Mum went ahead with the party, giving 14 rowdy ten years old's party food, party games and birthday cake after the match had ended. She made that day so special for me. Photos from that day show the fun that was had by us kids, but also show the pain and despair behind my mums eyes, as she tried to show a sense of normality for her son, all while trying to come to terms with the loss of her brother in law, and the fact that her husband and my Dad’s world was caving in as the truth was revealed to him, of how his brother had been found earlier that morning.

As a 10 year old boy, I grieved for my Uncle. As a 15year old young man, when my Grandmother passed away, we grieved again, and I was part of more adult conversations about what had happened to my Uncle. It was then that I was able to start to gain perspective on what had happened to Charlie. He had suffered from a run of serious bad luck, bad decisions, and heartbreak. This had led to the black dog of depression dragging him down. I often wonder if he had hoped to take me to Chessington as a way of cheering himself up. Only for me to have plans and for him to think that he couldn’t even do that right, adding to his list of things that had gone against him. 

In reality he was probably just trying to do his duties as a loving uncle. But what he failed to think of that night when no doubt he had a hundred thoughts racing through his head, where he couldn’t see a way out, is that we needed him and still do. It appears that drinking too much on the night that he ended things played a part too. I only wish someone could have been with him so that he wasn’t drinking alone, with a pen in his hand writing a goodbye letter, and idea in his head of ending his life. Only 8 years older than I am now.

There is a huge hole in our family, and younger relatives who do not share the same loving memories that my sister and I have, do not share the grief that we feel when we talk about him. He was the uncle who would play with us kids as if he was a kid himself, he would wrestle with us and always not really know his own strength. He would get us really worked up, and then leave our parents to calm us down. He was our friend and playmate as well as our uncle. He held a special place in my heart and I still think of him daily. 

I wasn’t informed what had actually happened to Charlie until my teenage years, when for some reason I questioned the original story of ‘illness’ which I had been told as an innocent ten year old. My mother wondered if I had been questioning it in the subsequent years. I hadn’t. I don’t even know where the question came from that day. Only now, in my early thirties, with a mortgage and family of my own, do I feel I can begin to understand what may have gone through his mind, and I think about it more and more. I too can wallow in self-doubt and anxiety, but I know I can share my issues with those around me. But if things got that bad, as bad as it got for him, would I still be able to reach out for help? Could I? Would I be judged? Will Charlie’s suicide have a knock on effect in my life?

I wish someone could have told my Uncle Charlie that he was not alone. I wish someone could have told him that were people who loved him eternally and would have always be there to help ease the burden, to ensure that he seeks support. My Dad wishes that Charlie would have decided to open up to him, to reach out to him and share his troubles. But that wasn’t Charlie. Apparently he decided that he didn’t want to ‘burden’ those around him. As far as we know he didn’t try to find help. I wonder if he was in my generation whether he would reach out to his friends and family. Times are changing, but not changing enough when you consider the alarming stat that CALM - the Campaign Against Living Miserably (http://www.thecalmzone.net) are trying to change, that suicide is the biggest killer of men my age.

I wish that the 10 year old me could have gone to Chessington on the Saturday, so that he had a great day, and the dark thoughts not appear that fateful Saturday night. I wish he had agreed to come to the party on the Sunday. But he didn’t. 

But life goes on, and I will teach my own son to open up and to express himself. To know that showing feelings and emotions does not make him weak. To know that should things go against him, should he encounter heartache, failure, and/or depression set in, there are people out there to help.

I saw a quote that said “suicide doesn’t just take away your own pain, it just gives it to someone else” – I totally agree with that..

Uncle Charlie– left us aged 41, – Forever in our hearts til we meet again.