As many of you will be aware, partner’s cousin Harry is no longer with us, but his spirit lives on. When he was missing, everyone was upset and when you are upset, different rules seem to creep in to your life. Some of these are good rules, like I can’t be fecking bothered to get worked up about my ex. There’s never any point in this anyway, so this is a step forward – thanks to Harry. Other things, however, got lax. For example, I didn’t seem to have that voice in my head, that tells me to stop hunting in the cupboards for cake. That voice was now telling me that it is fine to look for cake, eat all the bloody cake you want, because of Harry. The other morning the girls were taking conversational lumps out of each other. Rather than calming the situation down, (only for the neighbour’s sake), I just sloped back upstairs, to think about Harry. They’re just tired, I told partner, and they are worried about Harry.
Now Harry is gone, but of course he is continuing to affect our lives minute by minute. His calm, tender, intelligent spirit is touching us: the sun seems even brighter today, because of Harry. I am noticing every beautiful line and curve on partner’s face, because of Harry. I’m feeling other people’s warmth more intensely, because of Harry.
I kiss partner’s trembling bottom lip as I go off to work. I would rather life stopped for a moment so that I can hug him and cry and talk about what’s happened and feel upset that it’s one of the good guys that has gone and not one of the shitheads who walk on this earth, but life goes on. I have 13 3 and 4 year olds waiting and baying for my Taekwon-do instructor blood and they don’t give a crap about some bloke called Harry. We’ll open a bottle of wine tonight, partner says. I look at him with that, ‘on a Wednesday?’ look and then I say, ‘sure’, because of Harry.
The huge, aching hole that Harry’s death has left me with fills up with tears like a well. I have a feeling, however, that Harry’s spirit will use that water in the well to grow some bloody amazing veg and some other sustainable food sources that we can all eat and as we’re munching on a huge courgette, we’ll say that the world is still a better place, because of Harry.
A wet and wild walk with Harry and his Uncle Rob
Harry planting and watering those courgettes