5 Years Since the Crash

March 9 marks the 5th anniversary of my father’s death. Over time the pain has dulled but whenever I think about him  it forces suppressed emotions to the surface. Last week I heard that the house opposite my parents was for sale. Ever nosy and eager to see more I googled the name of the road to find the estate agent details. Instead of house particulars I was confronted by a five year old news story about the car crash which killed my father as he was going out to buy the evening paper. Tears spilled down my cheeks.

I can’t believe that so much has happened which he hasn’t been a part of.  I have had another baby. My baby turned out to be deaf. His sister died. His other sister died. I was made redundant. My husband was made redundant.

Put like that it doesn’t seem like he’s missed much. But he’s missed the happy times too.

The deaf 3 year old is a bundle of energy who has distracted us all from the void in our lives. The deaf issue is always at the back of our minds but is by no means what defines him and his joyful nature has almost single handedly put a smile back on the face of my mother. Not one for gushing about grandchildren she can barely contain her enthusiasm for him.

I tried for years to persuade my parents to move back to Scotland but since my father died my mother has reluctantly bought a flat in Edinburgh. She still has the house and countless friends in Derbyshire but now refers to the flat here as ‘home’ and makes more friends every time she comes up.

The 9 & 12 year old have transformed from High School Musical obsessed little girls to sport obsessed pre teens. He would definitely prefer hearing them talk about hockey, swimming and cross country results than watch them prance around clad in synthetic cheerleader outfits.

I’m not sure how he would react to my setting up my own business. He was a job for life kind of man and wouldn’t have encouraged me to take any risks but I think he’d have been pleasantly surprised by how things are going. Though possibly less relaxed now that my husband has been made redundant and Brownlee Donald Associates is going to have to support both of us.

I miss him for the financial advice I know he would give me. I miss reaching my arms around him for a big hug – he wasn’t tactile so wouldn’t have offered it first! I miss him for being a wonderful grandfather to my children. I miss him for looking after my mother. I miss his sparkling blue eyes which live on in my children. Five years on I just miss my lovely dad.

Disability is not a box to be ticked it’s a day to day reality

When I wrote my CV (for the first time in about 20 years) I added the line that since having a baby who is deaf, disability is no longer a box to be ticked by various organisations but a day to day reality. A colleague pulled me up on it, probably quite rightly, commenting that any future employer will read that to mean that the deaf issue impacts on me every day. It does, but not in a bad way. I actually meant it as a positive.

Pre diagnosis I sat on various boards and committees all of whom had to provide various disabled facilities. I was always supportive but it never seemed real until I had to deal with a disability of my own and began to appreciate the little person signing in the corner of TV programmes, the sign language interpreter at the Festival, the hearing loop at the theatre, the council directive that schools have to accommodate children with disabilities and will therefore address any acoustics issues.

Far from dominating my life in a bad way the deaf diagnosis has enhanced it. When things are bad it puts things in perspective but recently when my mother was ill and the impact of redundancy on bills was preying on my mind I was even happier to realise how far the deaf issue has moved down my list of worries.  My little boy is getting on so well and is so happy in himself that he’s stopped being a priority and is just another member of the family. He’s started singing the ‘more to eat, more to drink song’ complete with signs, not to mention hurling himself on the floor and warbling ‘row, row, row the boat’ at every available opportunity.

In terms of day to development I can’t see any difference between him and his friends other than the two little hearing aids hooked round his ears.  That can cause anxiety at soft play. Whereas most parents are worrying about the loss of a sock we are worrying about the loss of something substantially more expensive but we have the advantage of his two big sisters to chase him round the slides and ball pools like guardian angels in skinny jeans and Hollister hoodies.

It was my younger daughter’s 8th birthday party last week. The 10 year old brought out a cake and when she blew out the candle urged her to make a wish then tried to guess what she’d wished for. The 10 year old’s first guess was that she’d wished for our little boy not to be deaf.  She hadn’t.  The 8 year old had wished that my father hadn’t died in the car crash and could come back to life.  I was astonished by their selflessness. I was expecting her to wish for a puppy or an iPad. Both as unlikely as my father coming back to life or our little boy not being deaf.  I’d still rather he weren’t deaf too but as long as he’s happy I’m happy and I have never seen a happier child. Disability may be a day to day reality but it’s a reality we’re all coping with pretty well.

After Death and a Deaf Diagnosis, Redundancy will be a doddle – I hope.

I was told this week that the company I have worked for for the last 16 years is closing its doors at Christmas. At any other time redundancy would have been a body blow but having coped with the death of my father and my son’s deaf diagnosis the news didn’t hit me as hard as I thought it would.

It has been a good week. On Monday I was interviewed on BBC Radio Scotland and met the charming actress Gerda Stevenson, on Tuesday we heard that my 10 year old had been accepted to the school of our choice and on Thursday my 1 year old had a great audiology test which showed that his hearing is back on the moderate / severe borderline it had been pre glue ear in the Autumn. On Thursday afternoon I was made redundant.

When my bosses asked me to go to see them I naively thought they were going to offer me a pay rise. However the fact that all other senior managers were filing into the office too and the grim expressions of the founders showed it wasn’t going to be a happy chat.

We sat in stunned silence as they told us that after 35 years at the helm they have decided to close the office at the end of the year. It’s not that surprising. They are both over 60 and Random House bought 50% of the company over 7 years ago so subconciously I have probably been preparing for redundancy since then but I really hadn’t expected it now.

Some years ago I swithered over going for voluntary redundancy. I’m very glad I didn’t. Since then I have shared the excitment of developing our e-book programme, entered the fast moving world of digital marketing, travelled to Guadalajara, New York and Frankfurt and returned to my publicist roots. I’ve had a ball.

Only last week my daughter said she didn’t want me to ever leave Mainstream because I worked with such a great team. I do.  I know that I have transferable skills and am confident that when my job comes to an end at the year I’ll find something else to pay the new school fees but I’m not sure I will ever find an office where laughter is so prevalent, or where the Christmas present of choice is a saucy Santa outfit.

I’m sorry that the company is closing but I’m so happy that we had a positive audiology test and that my daughter passed her entrance exam that I cannot be too sad.  My children have proved themselves, now it’s my turn to show that I can prove myself too.

Controlled crying. For or against?

When I started this blog, long before my father’s car crash or our baby’s deaf diagnosis, the biggest drama in my life was sleep deprivation. Even post crash and deaf diagnosis, sleep deprivation still has the ability to transform me into a tearful shadow of my usual self.

Our 10 year old only started sleeping through the night when she began sharing a room with her sister. In an attempt to crack her sleep problems I bought every book on the subject, hired a ‘sleep doctor’ and had a researcher from a sleep clinic use her as a test case for a study so I know what I should be doing. I’m just not very good at doing it.

I dabbled with controlled crying but our first born cried so much she made herself sick and we would eventually relent. The experts advice to whisper words of reassurance was pointless as she couldn’t hear us through her own screaming. Our 18 month old can’t hear regardless so there is no point in whispering at all.

As we couldn’t follow the advice in the books we fell into all sorts of bad habits. Originally he would settle if we gave him milk so we gave him milk – at 11pm, then at 2am… then at 5am…. Latterly he wouldn’t go back into his cot and would literally wrap his limbs around us like a determined little orangutan until we relented and took him to our bed. I could have lived with that had he slept but even there he was taking longer and longer to settle with the result that since Christmas we have had to take it in turns to sleep with him so that we at least get some sleep every other night.

Detox January was manageable as we weren’t going anywhere but February marked the resumption of our social life and I realised that a dinner party wasn’t going to be a huge success if I had to go to bed when the 18 month old awoke at 11pm. Thankfully I had to go to London on business so charged my husband with the responsibility of forcing him back into the cot after his 11pm bottle and after that minor triumph decided to make him go cold turkey and venture into controlled crying territory.

It’s impossible to sleep when your baby is crying his heart out next door. My resolve very nearly weakened on numerous occasions but here we are 5 days on, the crying is less persistent, our bed is our own and the 18 month old is waking up at 7.30am with a big smile on his face.

He’s still hopeless at having a day time nap at his childminder but she claims that is because he wakes up at the slightest noise.  Our deaf baby hearing anything trumps sleep any time.

After the Crash and before the Jubilee

Never have I been more sleepless in silence in suburbia. Sleepless because my 9 month old baby has taken to waking at half ten and again at half twelve after which he steadfastly refuses to settle. Silence because in addition to his raft of tricks relating to whipping out his hearing aids and separating them into four pieces in a matter of seconds he has now added piercing the moulds with his razor sharp teeth rendering them virtually useless. Suburbia because although we’re always in suburban Edinburgh this week we ventured to suburban London for a much needed catch up with old friends. The girls think they went to London but in reality all of our friends have moved so far west that it’s practically the home counties. However a photo of the Harry Potter trolley at Kings Cross, a quick whizz over Waterloo bridge pointing out landmarks and we’ve convinced them they’ve been in the metropolis.

I was astounded by the prevalence of union jacks in London.  Everywhere I looked there was bunting whereas in Edinburgh, though not a city rampantly in favour of independence, it is only the occasional shop window that has an apologetic display dedicated to all things British. At St Pancras the girls were excited to see the Olympic rings suspended from the ceiling and even Marks and Spencer at Kings Cross had the All English range of sandwiches including Coronation Chicken and Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pud which I hadn’t spotted in their Scottish counterpart. In anticipation of the Jubilee, and presumably the Olympics, we had a note home from Brownies asking us to teach our children the National Anthem. As it was one of the first things I ever learned to blast out on a recorder at school (spit firing out the end) I was surprised that our children had got to the ripe old ages of 10 and 7 without learning it but as the anthem is generally only sung at sporting events which they watch with saltires painted on their faces I suppose it makes sense that they’re word perfect at the Flower of Scotland and clueless about the English equivalent.

We returned from London on Monday, a Bank Holiday here though nowhere else (interestingly the children only get one day off school for the Jubilee) and the children were still off school on the Tuesday. Perfect timing as it was my birthday. Twenty years ago I recall celebrating my birthday with a wild party in the garden of my London flat with free flowing Pimms and very little food. Ten years on I was pregnant with my first baby but still attempted to go out for a meal with a crowd of friends and pretend I hadn’t lost my party spirit. This year, increasingly unimpressed by my advancing years, I was quite happy to celebrate alone in the garden with the children.  I spent the day listening to one of our authors, Martin Spinelli, being interviewed on radio and TV. The subject of his book, After the Crash, resonates deeply with me. Like my father his wife was killed in a car crash but his young son was in the car with her and Martin barely had time to grieve as all his energy was directed at willing his little boy to recover.  Thankfully he did and Martin said in his many interviews that whereas before the accident, when he apparently he had everything, he was still dissatisfied with life, post accident he has realised that being a good father is more important than anything else.

It was ironic that as I listened to the various interviews and nodded sagely in agreement I was ignoring my own children. Though not as ironic as the phone in on one of the daytime programmes he was on which was on the subject of parents use of phones and computers being tantamount to child neglect.  I felt even more guilty then laughed as I heard the presenters urge parents to send in their thoughts by email, text or twitter or call them – no doubt with neglected children sitting in a high chair or crawling around their feet.

In fact I had a lovely birthday with my children.  The older one lay on her tummy in the garden reading magazines, the younger one cleaned out a water play tray for the baby to play with and he commando rolled around the garden, possibly in silence, certainly in suburbia, but clearly very happy.

The Inquest

Since school went back our family time has seemed even more precious than usual. We have enthusiastically made new resolutions which will no doubt be broken by half term but meantime are enjoying ‘family tea’ around the table at 6pm, ‘family bike rides’ and a roast every Sunday. We could have walked off the pages of a Cath Kidston catalogue. Last Sunday (after Church of course) while daughter no.1 cycled to Waitrose with her father I decided to indulge the five year old and cycle with her to the park. As we joined the cycle path I was aware that there were rather more cyclists than usual but didn’t think anything of it until we emerged from the tunnel into the park to deafening cheers, crowds thronging each side of the path and an enthusiastic DJ for ‘Real Radio’ urging the masses to show some support. It was then I realised that we had inadvertently joined the final stages of the Glasgow to Edinburgh bike ride and were being hailed as conquering heros when in fact we had cycled a few hundred yards from home, me in Prada flip flops, the five year old on a bright pink bike with yellow pedals.

I’m laughing just thinking about it. Something which has been rather short in our home of late. Last week marked six months since my father’s accident and the date of his inquest. My brother and I had no desire to go and my mother couldn’t bear to go so asked my husband to represent the family. He took his role very seriously and seemed to rather enjoy his opportunity to take the stand. I was glad that he was there for my mother but felt horribly alone hundreds of miles from where it was all happening. I intentionally asked not to be given details which I didn’t already know. The verdict was Accidental Death which suited me. Dad wasn’t blamed and nor was the other driver which was a huge relief. The compassion I felt in March has been replaced by blind rage and I don’t know how I would have coped if the coroner had established it was someone else’s fault.

Unfortunately my husband’s attempts to spare me the details were confounded by the local paper who chose to splash details of the case over a full page two days later. Using graphic quotes from the driver and passenger in the car which hit him and stark comments from the police they manufactured a lurid story which again turned my fathers death into a tabloid sensation tearing apart the months I have spent trying to convince myself that it was better he was thrown from the car instead of having to be cut from the mangled wreckage. I have worked in the media for years and have applauded attention grabbing headlines, when you’re on the receiving end it’s a very different story.

That evening we had been invited to a ‘plastic fantastic’ party to celebrate our friends having their grass (for grass read mud – they have three boys) replaced with astro turf. As soon as I knew the dates of the inquest I was unsure whether I would be able to bring myself to go let alone dress up but with babysitter booked and still no outfit I took my daughters into the city centre to see what I could find. I realised I had committed myself to the party when I emerged from Harvey Nichols batting fake eyelashes put on at the Mac counter. Thereafter it was a short trip to my hairdressers to borrow a gown, rollers and a hairpiece after which with the addition of some face paint, blue eyeshadow and a gaudy painted on smile I should have looked like Girls World but in fact looked like a transvestite. I wasn’t on top form but fancy dress made it easier to be anonymous, wine helped and the painted on smile worked a treat. I wish I could wear it all the time.

Death is nothing at all

The last week has passed in a blur of sleepless nights and busy days.  After the initial shock of my father’s death I had expected the days leading up to the funeral to be filled with shared reminiscences and happy memories but in fact we were so busy with all the admin involved in trying to sort out legal and financial issues, arranging the funeral and greeting the many visitors to the house that we haven’t had a moment to sit down and simply be a family.

None of us have slept, my mother has resorted to sleeping pills which at least get her partly through the night.  I have stuck to the more traditional method of a couple of glasses of wine. The children for once are sleeping through though none of us are sure who is sleeping where or with whom.

People have been so kind.  Friends have looked after the children, baked cakes, delivered meals, sent flowers and hundreds of letters and cards with wonderful adjectives describing my father which have given us much pleasure amidst the pain.  The one which recurs in almost every one is that of gentleman, a word not often used these days but which describes him perfectly.

Organising a funeral is much like organising a wedding in that there is a church to book, hymns and readings to choose, speeches to write, catering to arrange, flowers to organise and an announcement to put in the paper.   When writing the death notice we looked for inspiration to the Daily Telegraph which ultimately proved to be one of the most heartbreaking moments of our entire ordeal as far from being able to plagiarise ‘died peacefully at home’ we had to think how to write euphemistically ‘killed violently in street’.

The horror of his death has been slightly tempered by the kindness of strangers, in particular visits from the first three people who were with my father at the scene of the accident.  Initially we had only the bare facts from the emergency services – two cars collided, he was thrown through the drivers window, broke almost every bone in his body including his neck and was conscious until the ambulance arrived 20 minutes later.  My imagination embellished the facts and I couldn’t bear to think about the time which was unaccounted for, worrying that he was in terrible pain and alone. It was therefore with great relief that we met the three young men who had called 999 when they came to offer their condolences.  They had run home to get towels to keep him warm, given up a coat to make him more comfortable and kept him talking.  They reassured us that he was lucid, wasn’t in pain and had landed on the grass verge as opposed to hard asphalt.  Walking past the scene on the morning of his funeral and seeing the spot bathed in sunlight, flowers appearing through the grass encircled by trees, I felt strangely at peace.

It wasn’t until I got married that I appreciated seating plans and table decorations and it is only having experienced bereavement first hand that I appreciate how much letters and a steady supply of soup can mean to a family in utter shock. I have also been so touched by the enormous amount of friends and relatives who travelled from all over the UK not to mention, Denmark and Sweden, in order to attend the funeral.  Just as at a wedding friends are ruthlessly categorised into A list and B list, so too in the last week I have realised who our really true friends are.  There were 300 in total at the church.  My brother did a eulogy, I only felt capable of reading the poem Death is Nothing At All by Henry Scott Holland and even that was difficult with hands shaking and tears streaming down my cheeks. After the service we went to a country house hotel for canapés and free flowing wine and although it was draining it was reassuring to be surrounded by so many people who clearly care so much for our broken family and are willing us to get through this.

My brother and family have now returned to New York and we have returned to Edinburgh.  It is horrible being wrenched from the safe cocoon of our childhood home and the tight family unit we have formed over the last ten days but like a scab forming over a wound we are pulling together and know that life, however painful initially, will go on.

My father

When I talked about a daddy shaped hole in our lives being filled over and needing to be bludgeoned open again I hadn’t meant my own daddy or expected the hole to be bludgeoned with such force.  Shortly after making such flippant comments my whole world turned upside down when I received a phone call from my mother in Derbyshire.  She cares deeply about everyone, wears her heart on her sleeve and has been known to call me in tears about someone I have never met and she knows only slightly being diagnosed with a terminal illness so when I had a calm phone call from her telling me that my father had been in a car accident I initially thought nothing too serious had happened.  Then I realised that the words she was saying didn’t stack up to the calm way in which they were delivered.

Although she insisted I didn’t need to do anything and should wait for another phone call I immediately began checking the computer for flights to East Midlands, discovering to my distress that the last of the night had left five minutes before.  Fifteen minutes later, as I was poised to book one for the following morning we got another call to say that it was more serious, his heart had stopped for ten minutes and he was too weak to get a scan.  To my surprise my mother didn’t complain when I said we were coming right down and we rushed round the house bundling children into pyjamas and clothes into bags.  It was the worst journey of my life.  At best it is a five hour journey from Edinburgh to Derbyshire and every step of the way I was getting ever more tragic updates culminating with a phone call when we were in Newcastle to say that he had died from massive internal bleeding.  I had to call my brother who was equally helpless waiting in a departure lounge in New York and we both sobbed down the phone to each other, in contrast to my mother who, when I eventually reached her at the hospital, was still unbelievably stoical being supported by a close friend.  Three days on she still hasn’t cried.

I made the decision to go and see my father in his hospital bed and slightly wish I hadn’t.  Although his body was there his golfers tan was yellow and waxen, his twinkling blue eyes were closed and his permanent smile was replaced by an open mouth which only resembled his expression when he’d fallen asleep in front of the TV.  When I held his cold hand it didn’t feel like his but when I clutched his expansive chest it at least felt like the bear hug I gave him every time I left home.  None of us slept when we got home that night.  The sleeping children were transferred to bed and my mother, husband and I sat up drinking brandy and trying to make sense of the days events.  Eventually at about 3.30am mum announced she would need a hot water bottle if she were going to sleep in their bed without dad there to warm her and I offered to sleep beside her to keep her company.  I had never slept there before, as a child I was desperate to but was invariably frog marched back to my room so it was weird being in that situation at the age of 41. After no sleep the first night I completely passed out the second but by the third I couldn’t sleep and would wake from nightmares to realise that reality was even worse.  Having woken mum with my sobs I realised that it was probably better to get up and attend to all the admin which was buzzing round my head.

There is so much admin. Not only the funeral which involves the church, the crematorium, the undertakers and the hotel where we’re inviting people afterwards but in our case the police and the local paper who have been doorstepping us in the hope of a vicious comment about speeding or an emotional outburst about what an amazing man he was.  This morning after dealing with endless calls arranging the funeral I felt slightly more in control then collapsed when I read the shout line on the hoarding outside the newsagents announcing details of the horror death of a local man.

I am not sure how I will cope with the next few days let alone the next few weeks but I know for certain that I wouldn’t have got this far without the tremendous support of friends, family and the husband I so cruelly maligned last week. I am very, very lucky to have him and I have never felt so close to my brother.  I’m so glad that we brought the kids with us.  They have brought light into our darkest hours, the four year old with her innocence of the situation and the seven year old with her sensitivity.  However the person who has given me the most support is ironically the person I am supposed to be supporting.  For the time being at least, my mother has taken complete control of the situation and is holding the family together.  My father would be proud, mum has slipped effortlessly into his role and is proving that she really is our rock.