Thankyou for the Music

          

       Today would have been my wonderful son Nick's 48th birthday. Of course, to us he will always be 19 and handsome, funny, kind, and full of life. 
        Every year I tend to write about him on his birthday, and every year I find  something else to say about him. Today I am thinking of  few of the things he left me. Not material things of course, because Nick had so few of those, and he cared very little about that stuff anyway. But the big things he had,  like a knowlege that he loved deeply and and was deeply loved in his short life.       The gestures and  smiles and expressions that are so "Nick" that I see in his brothers and sisters all the time.
    The fact that his close friends and the girl he loved still get in touch and talk about him with such love, and who still are a part of our lives, says much about Nick and who he was.
       Practically the last thing he said to me was "Mum I am so proud of you" and I did not deserve it. So he left me a task of trying to become deserving in my dealings with others, (Nowhere near there yet)!
      He left me with the strength to stand up to bullies, no matter who they are, and to hold out for integrity. The pain of his death made everything else that I had ever suffered pale into insignificance, any battle to be fought a piece of cake in comparison.
      He left amazing memories of laughter, some "naughtiness" and  very funny stories.
        When someone dies people often don't know what to say, and unfortunately they do sometimes say the wrong thing. I had so many people saying things to me at the time to try and help. One person, a doctor, said to my daughter, Louise (Nick's sister) - "Well statistically with six children it was unlikely you would all survive to old age" -WTF!- This was her brother, she had just lost him and was heartbroken.
         Someone said to me "Well at least you have got another five"! WTF!- Nick was unique and irreplaceable, and there is nothing and no one who could take his place.
          His  youngest brother and sister went to school after a few days and in Assembly the talk was of how brave they were,  and how sad it was - And then they got his name wrong! and they were devastated.
        This picture of him was taken just a few hours before he died, and the camera was rescued from the car fire, hence the poor quality. I have always thought it also  gift, he is poised on a rock in the beauty of the Lake district, and he looks as if he is about to fly. 
       I like to think the last thing he ever saw was incredible beauty.
        I am a fighter, always have been - I guess I always will be, and with good cause I think. But losing Nick knocked the stuffing out of me and I never quite recovered.There is a deep hole there that can never be filled.
        I function pretty much most of the time, but on days like this I buckle, and need to draw on all the things he left me in order to pick myself up.I am especially thankful to his brothers and sisters who keep his memory very much alive, and  like me, will  never forget him.
       It has been cold and grey here for ages but today - Nick's birthday - the sun is shining and the sky is clear blue!
      Nick loved music,  I remember staying up all night with him to watch "Live aid", we were the only two still able to stay awake! and he left us with some very special songs, that we all associate just with him.
    I can't say "Happy Birthday" on a day like this because it just isn't! But I can say "Thank-you" to him, for everything he gave me , and 
"Thankyou for the music."

It is here again,  that day in January that I dread. It is another year that we have had without Nick in our lives. Every day he is on my mind, but today is always the most painful.I always say that I won't mark this day specifically because it hurts  too much, and I think about him EVERY day. But nature has a way of reminding me! I look out at the grey sky and the damp and cold, and it takes me right back to that dreadful time.
I was thinking very much about reminders, I listened to a documentary on the radio only the other day about the Sami people of Norway who have a tradition of "Yoiking".  It was a specific way of singing, more  like a call,  and each person had their own  distinctive "Yoik". Apparently it was banned by the church because of its roots in paganism (I do so approve of anything that the church arrogantly thinks they have the right to ban!) 
One woman described how she can almost feel her dead Mother's presence by singing her Mother's "Yoik". I thought how nice it would be if we all had those unique sounds that were associated with each individual, that we could summon them up just by singing their own "Yoik".
 Of course we are able to listen to people's voices on tapes these days, and some are lucky enough to have videos of people they have lost. I have a couple of archaic tapes with Nick's voice on as he is trying to get his little brother to stop crying, he was so good at that. I also have about one minute of him on a video when he was filmed at Glastonbury (a prized possession). But actually they are only "things' because his memory is so embedded in my heart.
When he first died, I went through a million crazy phases of panic and heartbreak and even a desire to die, and one of the irrational fears I had was that I might forget his voice. Every day I would go over things he had said to me, desperately trying to hold on to the sound of it. I needn't have worried, because I only have to think about him and I can hear him! I remember instantly his smell,  how he felt when he gave me one of his bear hugs, his laugh, his crazy hairstyles, his beautiful brown eyes.
I remember his razor wit and rather naughty humour, above all his kindness,  and despite having very little himself, his genuine pleasure in other's successes.
He left a lot of reminders too, with his brothers and sisters who have a smile or a gesture which is so "Nick" and with his friends still so loyal and loving.
At the time I had so many people trying to help me through it all, and one of the things that I remember was a psychiatrist friend of mine telling me to " Have it- no matter how bad it gets, just Have it, don't block it out, don't anaesthetise it with booze or pills, because it just delays the inevitable and makes the pain worse" 
It seems an odd thing to  call the day someone died  their "anniversary" but today is my son Nick's. So on days like these I remember those words and instead of fighting I will just "Have it".
I don't have a Yoik to sing but I do have a favourite song of his that we all associate with him! I will play it and see all of the things around me that remind me of him.