Thursday

Thursday

Mental health-wise, this was a bad day. A really Bad Day. Capital ‘B’, capital ‘D’ Bad Day.

I knew it was going to be a Bad Day too. I could feel it coming.

Over the past few days Lesley had asked several times whether I was going to the funeral or not.

“I don’t know”.

We both knew that meant I wasn’t going.

“Because if you’re not going you should let them know you won’t be there”

When I’d seen where the funeral was to be held my first reaction had been “Oh blimey! That looks awkward!”. It was in east London but not a bit I knew well even though it was literally a stone’s throw from the hospital where I was born. A few years ago, if I’d had to get there for work, I’d have been there for 8am without any problem. Now the thought of getting there for a 10am kick-off seemed a Herculean task. Seeing that the quickest route involved two changes on The Tube and a half-hour walk at the other end made it seem impossible.

I felt terrible. For all sorts of reasons.

One reason was that I’d felt like this before. This physical and mental shutting down was exactly how I’d felt in my last proper job just before I got the formal diagnosis of severe depression. The inability to make a decision, the inability to pick up a phone and ultimately the inability to even get out of bed were an exact parallel. Fortunately, I remembered enough of my CBT to know that this lapse was probably going to be temporary and wasn’t going to turn into a complete relapse and that I’d be able to get myself back on track again afterwards. But the word ‘probably’ was enough for it to be concerning.

Learning of The Vicar’s death by WhatsApp had been a real shock. I don’t think I had got over it. She was only a few months older than me after all. I’ve got to the point in life where reminders of my own mortality hit hard.

I hadn’t known The Vicar well but I knew that Mum and Dad had formed an important part of her and her daughter’s lives. Mum and Dad had done some baby-sitting for The Vicar when her daughter was small. It was The Vicar who had encouraged Mum to become a church warden. The Vicar had been a frequent visitor to Mum when she was in The Hospital in London which was how I got to know her properly. When we moved Mum to The Home out here in the Thames Valley she had even come to see her here a couple of times which was more than some of the family had managed. The Vicar had officiated at Dad’s funeral and had come back out here to officiate at Mum’s too in spite of clearly being unwell. It was obvious how important Mum and The Vicar were to each other.

And now I had failed to return the respect and get myself over to The Vicar’s funeral. I hadn’t even shown the courtesy to her family and let them know I wouldn’t be there.