Bernie
16.01.06, 12:27 am

This entry will make just as much heavy reading as the one about my mum did... please skip it if you're feeling depressed in any way. Honestly, I won't be offended in the slightest; I know this is not the easiest of things to read.

Anniversaries went as well as could be expected, I guess. Sunday was less intense than Friday, which looks awful written down. Friday was a horrible, pressing kind of sadness, whereas Sunday was just a vague, unplaceable kind of sadness. I kept having a recurring memory on Sunday, which was just badness, to be honest. For some reason it was of John driving me to the hospital on the evening of the 13th, after my dad rang me and told me it was a suspected aneurysm and that John was coming to get me � my sister was in Nottingham at that time. As I got out and walked through the hospital doors Maggie walked from a little side room to meet me, and as we walked back towards the room she said, "I�m really sorry, Holly, I know this is a bad day for you already with your mum" and I just replied, "No, no it�s fine, it�s fine". My mind sucks ultimate ass sometimes... I have no idea why it decided to make me replay that memory over and over again but good job, because it worked and I stayed depressed.

I feel the need to write about this... to get all these memories out of my system. I have no idea if this is a good idea or not, but I can�t handle them floating around my head any more... they're driving me crazy and I need to sleep.

That was one of the longest days ever. Around lunchtime that day she had suddenly lost all feeling in one side of her body, couldn�t talk very clearly and said that her head was absolutely agony. We rang for an ambulance straight away. I remember coming home from the hospital at about nine o�clock that night, after they�d managed to relieve the pressure on her brain and stabilise her, and consequently moved her to ICU and let us see her. Aneurysms cause blood to enter the space between the brain and the inside of the skull, and as more enters the pressure around the brain increases. It was a 50/50 chance of her surviving the pressure-draining thing, and she was under sedation, although obviously with hindsight she wouldn�t have woken up even if she hadn�t have been on sedation. Once we got home I texted various people the news and then just sat in the kitchen and smoked endless cigarettes until I felt tired. I�d quit smoking about 3 months ago but it didn�t seem to matter. My dad sat in the other room and stared at the wall.

The next day was the day of waiting, as they�d stopped the sedation and she was supposed to come round. I�d sat by the phone for most of the day, and after another update from my dad of "No change" I eventually couldn�t take anymore and phoned Matt and asked him to drive up from Stockport to see me. He did immediately, and I tried to tell him what had happened without crying but failed, and although he kept telling me that there was still chance of her being all right I knew that he was wrong. And then the morning after that we were all told to come in, and the doctor sat down with us in the Bad News Room and told us that she was clinically brain dead, and everyone cried except me. Even the nurse who came in with the doctor cried, but I just stared at the wall and numbly made geometrical shapes out of the green diamonds on the wallpaper, because I�d known since the day before. I�d known ever since the update of "No change" and ever since I�d cried into Matt�s shoulder for five minutes whilst he told me that there was still hope.

We went into ICU to say goodbye to her one at a time, because I�d requested it be that way, and when I went in I firstly washed my hands the way they tell you how to on the posters, even though it didn�t matter then; it wouldn�t have made any difference, she was already gone. And I sat and held her hand with two hands... it was important to hold onto as much of her as possible, and for some reason I expected her to be cold, but obviously she wasn�t; she was warm and looked exactly the same. I said some stuff out loud, and forced myself not to cry, and I kissed her hand and kissed her forehead and could have stayed there for hours... happily sat there for hours and hours, just holding her hand.

They did organ donation that afternoon, and then turned her life support machine off. I came home and smoked endlessly once more, texted people the news and rang Lisa. I remember saying, "I think maybe it hasn�t sunk in yet" and her saying, "I was going to say, you sound very calm about it all" and me just replying with, "Yeah... yeah I do". I think it had sunk in though; I think I�d just shut myself off completely, like I did before. I don�t think I�ve really stopped shutting myself off since; it�s like I�ve pulled this huge switch that I now don�t know how to flip back up again. I think I hate anniversaries not just because of the memories they bring up, but because I always feel incredibly guilty for not getting emotional, for not crying, for not feeling it more. Anybody else would get upset and tell people that they were upset and wish that they didn�t feel it so much, but I always just wish that I felt it more. Not feeling it more makes me think I�m some kind of horrible person, and I don't want to be a horrible person because I do care. I honestly do care.

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