Reality

Tuesday 3am

Nothing seems real. I am sitting in a rented house on the other side of the world from home, surrounded by unfamiliar things, living out of a suitcase really. My sleeping patterns are all mixed up - here I am awake at three in the morning, my head bunged up, hayfever I think, but feeling like I am not quite here, not quite anywhere really. A ghost.

This was an unexpected trip, arranged at short notice due to my fathers death. His illness and death came upon us quite quickly really, not unexpectedly as I have said, but the quickness of his going into hospital, his slight recovery and then rapid decline and death all seemed to happen quicker than I could respond to. The funeral of course was arranged and over in a few days and again this made it almost impossible to be here even if we could have afforded the trip. I should have been here of course and would have liked to have been, but did not realise this until afterwards. Moving so far away from home I knew something like this was bound to happen eventually and I think I really said goodbye to him two and a half years ago when we left.

So now we are all gathered to scatter Eric’s ashes and say goodbye, and I feel detached from it all, like arriving during a film, not quite sure who is who or what the plot is.