grief

I Love You, Sideways

I blame the band Bleachers, but it’s not really their fault. They just happen to have written a song about loving someone sideways. And under normal conditions, this is a perfectly fine piece of music for me to listen to.  I’ve played it plenty of times with no ill effect.  I have absolutely no idea why then, on this particular occasion – a mild, temperate Saturday morning in the gym – that the song would have this effect on me.

It comes unexpectedly, uninvited, not necessarily unwelcome, or in fact, unwanted.  Connecting with it is part of life for me. It actually makes me feel normal now, strange though that may sound. For sure, its timing wasn’t great today – it often isn’t. It tends to catch me off guard. Like it’s snuck up behind me or jumped out in front of me. 

But there it was. Coming up for air. a gradual welling up.  ‘Welling up’ is a good way of putting it. It’s not a surge as such. It’s not as violent or passionate as a volcano eruption, or an earth quake tremor.  It’s much quieter. Almost timid. Gentle, at least at first. Like it’s coaxing me out in a friendly sort of way. Like it wants me to open up, to see it, to face it, to look at it head-on. It seems to know that, however hard it is to face into, it’s better for me that I do, and that I don’t avoid it. Or squash it down.

Over a few lingering seconds, my brain starts to connect with whatever is going on in my chest, in my lungs, in the pit of my stomach. My mind communing with my body, listening, recognising the feeling. Knowing it. Not like it’s trying to make sense of it. I used to do that. Now, over time, I just know it, I don’t need to analyse it, to try and figure out where its come from, or even what it is. There’s no sense in trying to make sense of the senseless.  

Just accept it. Let it come. 

Luckily the gym is quiet for a Saturday morning. There’s only a handful of people around and they’re all busy doing their thing. And without exception, everyone has earphones in. Set to max volume, no doubt. Playing a motivational playlist, like mine – ‘Bleachers Mix’.

Despite the relative safety of limited numbers and all wrapped up in their personal preoccupation, I still feel self-conscious. So I pace up and down a bit. Try to look absorbed in my routine. I find a quiet corner and hope no one’s noticed my tears. I try to look like I’m taking a break between rounds, preparing myself for my next circuit. I face the wall, staring intently at the poorly painted breeze block that’s seen better days. I jig about a bit, as my sight becomes blurry and the breeze block loses its definition.

Breathing can be tricky at times like this. It’s as though I’ve forgotten how to do it. And I end up having to take much deeper intakes of breath to sustain myself. 

It’s here alright. 

It knows me and I know it.  Now, we’re sort of friends really. We’re familiar with each other. Comfortable almost. I’m certainly not scared of it any more. I know it will leave at some point, sooner rather than later. And seemingly always before anyone around me notices it’s arrived. 

—

So follow me, I know this haze
And I love you sideways*

—

Later in the afternoon, showered and freshened up, I go to watch my football team play out a somewhat dreary League One clash. Nil-nil after 98 minutes. Not the best performance. Better in the second half, but still off pace, not fast enough in the attack. Good turn-out though.

At about half eight that evening, whilst watching a documentary about photographer Martin Parr, it comes again.  A bottle of red has probably surfaced it. It often does.  

So I retreat to bed and curl up with it, under the warmth of my duvet. We are sheltered away together. Riding the tide, seeing where the wind will blow us. 

Lying in the dark, I draw a circle in the air with my finger. Like I’m outlining a whole in space that I can climb into.

*’Sideways’ by Bleachers (from the 2026 album everyone for ten minutes) is written and produced by Jack Antonoff.

Yellow Blanket Shrouds – the calm before the storm

It was Friday 18 March 2016, the day before Beth and Izzy’s funeral. Day 22 After.

We were at the Medico-Legal Centre, home of Sheffield coroner’s office and the ‘facilities and services required for the investigation of sudden or unexpected death’.

Ever since their bodies had been collected from MAN flight terminal, they’d come home with a snow laden, blue-lit Police escort, (An Accidental Soundtrack to Grief – Part 2) and they’d stayed at the Medico-Legal Centre. Maxine, the woman in charge of the mortuary, had promised us she would make sure they stayed together, next to each other.  And when the undertakers, ahead of the funeral, wanted to move them to their own facilities, we’d asked Maxine if they could stay there with her instead. It felt the right thing to do. They’d travelled enough.

And we were there now to meet Maxine, to hand over clothing and possessions we’d chosen for them to leave this world with. The often untold, suitably surreal ritual for a rite of passage. We had jodhpurs, a shirt and riding jacket for Izzy in her cross-country colours. For Beth, a choice selection from her many self-embroidered outfits.

We waited in the red brick reception, sitting on stiff, corporate blue, foam-filled chairs. Kramer, our FLO, was there too. She sat perched on the very edge of her seat and we talked. I don’t remember about what. 

Then Maxine came out to greet us. I’d met her before, the day they’d flown home, when I’d handed her Izzy’s Teddy and Beth’s Toby. But for Trace and Molly, she was another new person in a catalogue of people we were meeting for the first time. A montage of faces and of roles in the investigation of sudden or unexpected death.

Maxine guided us down a blank looking corridor and then to the right somewhere, further into the seemingly sprawling, anonymous building.  She led us into a small, sterile, windowless room and we sat down on the same blue vinyl covered seats. They felt strangely uncomfortable and awkward to sit on, too low to be comfortable. But then I suppose they weren’t chosen for comfort. This place wasn’t fitted out for comfort. They must have been bought from a standard, public sector stock purchasing facility. A fake plastic pine coffee table was next to the seats. On it was a solitary box of tissues, sat ready. 

I have a recollection of Maxine in blue surgical scrubs, but I think I might have this mixed up with TV drama portrayals of the chilled, sanitary air of mortuaries and men.

Maxine sat close, Kramer to one side. She introduced herself to us. She gathered their things from us, as we talked about what they’d be wearing, what each item of clothing meant, about how they represented who they were – so painfully in the past tense, but still talked about in the present tense. 

Maxine looked at me and told me Teddy and Toby were still with them – had been with them ever since they’d arrived here. Then she looked at all of us and, pointing somewhere to our left and slightly behind her, told us they were just there, in an adjacent room. She said she’d made sure they’d always been together, side by side, all the time they’d been here. And they were just there together, now. 

She said she’d leave us now. That we should take as long as we wanted to. To just sit here. To be close to them. Then she stood up and left the room, along with Kramer. She said she would be next door. To take as long as we wanted to, she reassured us.

The three of us sat together. I don’t remember for how long or if we talked or sat in silence. But we sat there.

Then there was a quiet knock on the door and Maxine returned. She sat down and said, ‘I think you should see them’ and nodded to us and as if to herself.

‘It’s going to be very public tomorrow. There’ll be lots of people. I think you should spend a few moments with them now, alone. So I’m going to bring them next door.’  She pointed to an unnoticed door.

It wasn’t what we’d expected – I suppose we didn’t have any expectations – but we didn’t argue with her or even consult with each other. Just as Maxine said we should see them, it felt the right to do. 

A few minutes later, the unnoticed door opened and Maxine reappeared. 

‘They’re here now.’

We all stood and went in together.  

In a dimly lit room about the same size as the waiting room we’d just come from, were two benches, each covered with yellow blankets that outlined the shape of bodies – heads, feet, arms, silently covered. The blankets reminded me of the blankets of my childhood, of cold Winter nights, of illness induced warmth. The nearest body had Teddy nestled by their arm, the furthest, Toby. I think there was a vase of flowers in the corner of the room. Maybe not.

We moved around, each lost in our own heads, unsure of what to do, who to take the lead. Somehow we did what we each needed to do. We cried. We held each other. I touched Izzy’s foot, familiar with the size and shape, shocked by its coldness and hardness. I held her hand through the blanket shroud. I kissed her covered forehead. I moved round to Beth and did exactly the same. They looked so similar, the two of them. Only their childhood toys who guarded them, marked them apart. 

Molly then asked if she could be alone with her sisters. So Trace and I sat in the annex waiting room, as agonising parents, for minutes that felt like hours, as Molly spent precious, private moments with her two sisters.

I have no idea what happened after. How long it was before Maxine came in, or if one of us went to look for her. And I have absolutely no recollection whatsoever of how we got home. I was utterly and completely lost.

——

I have no idea how Maxine does what she does, given that this is something she does on a daily basis. What stays with me is her open heart and her sensitivity to read us and understand us. 

Her decision to gift us those precious few moments with them in the quiet and the stillness of our new-found grief was 100% the right one. We had a very precious but very painful moment of calm before the storm of the next day’s funeral ceremony. 

If she read the situation instinctively, she read it so well. If she acted it out, she acted it so perfectly. I just know she knows what she’s doing and she’s very good at her job. 

I wish Maxine a good night’s sleep, every night.