“Your sister has had an incident with a rabbit.”
I’m fairly sure this isn’t what my sister was expecting to hear when she saw my daughter’s number flash up on her phone last Sunday afternoon. Confused is the best way to describe her response. And I think the confusion became even greater when my mum followed up with that the Easter Bunny had fallen on my head. We’re in August after all, what on earth was she expected to think?!
But let me take you back to the beginning of this story. Last weekend was the weekend I’d had earmarked for months to empty, sort and tidy up the man cave at the bottom of the garden. It’s become a bit of a dumping ground over the last couple of years, but when it reached the point that I was struggling to even get in and needed to climb over boxes just to move, I knew something had to be done. The past few months have been pretty chaotic, and we had to clear it in the summer to prevent things being rained on, so August it was. I’d been off work for a couple of weeks, and it just felt like this was the perfect opportunity.
Saturday morning, I was fired up. I was raring to go. I was annoyed with myself that I’d let it get into this state and became a bit of a woman on a mission. “No, not used that in years, that can go” became a frequent phrase of mine. My mum, stepdad and I created piles of bits to stay, go to the tip (I do love a tip run after all!) and go to charity shops. By mid afternoon on Saturday, one side was all done and dusted. A proper sense of achievement, and I felt that Sunday would be a slightly easier day as the majority of the bits on the other side were already in boxes and just needed organising better.
But on Sunday morning, I wasn’t feeling as fired up. I’d woken up and tried to find family photos and videos of Mr C singing to send to accompany a recent podcast I’d recorded, and in that moment, I felt sad. The tears started to flow, and it felt like it was going to be harder doing more sorting of his belongings without him. It was, as I’ve come to know them, “a grief-y day.” But I persevered. My mum and stepdad came round again to help, and we got it done. More charity shop bags were created, and another tip run booked. We were going to finish earlier than the previous day and would then be all good to sit down with a cuppa. That was, until the Easter Bunny attacked.
As my mum and I went to put something in front of the windows, I accidently knocked the bunny which was on top of a box. It fell, hit me on the head and then fell to the floor where its foot was smashed off. I swore quite emphatically. It had really hurt after all, but I then continued with what I was doing. Mum walked out of the man cave to get a bag of peas or something else cold to pop on my head (benefit of her having been a nurse for over 30 years, she knows exactly what to do in circumstances like this). And then I realised my head and neck felt wet, feeling confused I put my hand there and discovered I was bleeding, and in my mind, there was a lot of blood.
“I’m bleeding” I then shouted and went to sit down in the garden. Mum was there, putting wet, cold kitchen towel on my head to stem the bleeding and I think it was at this point, I went into shock. “Am I going to die?” I asked her. The rational side of me knew I wasn’t, I hadn’t passed out and it wasn’t the most severe of bangs to the head, but the fear was palpable. As I looked at my daughter, I sobbed “I can’t die, I can’t leave her by herself, please don’t let me die.” Again, rational Emma knew this was unlikely, but vulnerable, irrational, widow Emma was scared. I think this Emma took my mum a little by surprise, it’s not often that I’m vulnerable like this in front of others. At this point, she sent my daughter indoors to make me a cup of sweet tea and made the call to my sister in a bid to get her to help calm me down and see sense. Ever the pragmatic realist, my sister was able to do this to a point and then we went to Minor Injuries.
Explaining that a giant rabbit had fallen on my head did feel, quite frankly, ridiculous. But then came the question which anyone who has lost someone close to them dreads “who is your next of kin?” I’d been there before; I knew chances were that I’d already changed it from Mr C but in that moment everything just felt too much. “I don’t know, I suppose it’s my mum” was my response as I started crying again. I don’t want to be reminded that I no longer have a spouse. The receptionist very kindly gave me a tissue and then I went to sit in the waiting area. Fortunately, I was seen relatively quickly and established I didn’t need stitches or any further treatment but needed to rest and do very little for the next 24 hours. I went back to my mums where she cooked us dinner, dozed on and off and then went home.
The next morning when I woke up, I was still feeling incredibly vulnerable. It just reminded me that accidents happen. Life can change in a heartbeat. The fear of leaving my daughter was the highest it’s been for a very long time. I sat on the sofa and just sobbed. While the physical pain had lessened, the emotional pain was a little bit higher. The underlying fear that lives inside me was that little bit higher. I don’t do sitting at the best of times but knew that I needed to rest. As much for my mental health as the physical recovery.
A few hours later, my stepdad popped round to help me take things to the charity shop and the dog to the groomers. But in another twist of fate, as we were looking at a broken picture frame, I unclipped part of it and a large shard of glass slipped and cut his leg. There was blood everywhere. Not overly great when you live with a child who doesn’t do blood! The fear crept in again, I felt sick. How could this have happened? Someone had literally just popped round to help me and there’d been another accident. I wasn’t entirely sure this was what was meant by taking it easy! Back to Minor Injuries I went, and the wait times were a lot longer than they’d been the day before. The guilt kicked in even more at this point, he was going to be there over lunch, and it was all my fault. I’d have to tell mum who was at work blissfully unaware of the carnage that had occurred. To cut a long story short, Minor Injuries were unable to help him, and he then had to go to A&E. Two hospitals, stitches, tetanus, antibiotics and eight hours after he’d come round to mine, he finally made it home. Guilt, emotion, vulnerability increasing by the second.
And as we were sat waiting for news from him, my daughter put Gavin and Stacey on. The episode where they get married. If you’ve not seen it, the bride’s uncle brings out a letter from her late father that he wrote for her wedding day. My tears were back. I yelled at my daughter to turn it off. I just couldn’t face dealing with seeing this on a TV screen. It’s something that pains me to this day and will probably pain me forever that Mr C never got the chance to do something like this. That he never got to tell people how he felt about them, to write letters for her as she grows up and more importantly, that he never got to say goodbye. To anyone. He was robbed of that opportunity, and I hate it. I absolutely hate it. For him and everyone who was left behind.
I went to bed that night emotionally fraught and done in again. Two accidents in two days. I was feeling the most vulnerable and fearful I’d felt in such a long time. I just wanted someone to give me a hug and tell me it was all going to be ok. Yet over the next few days, these feelings started to dissipate a little. My daughter had some friends over, I had my lovely WAY angel stay, we took cheques to both The Big Cat Sanctuary and Medway Hospital ITU totalling £2,020 from the profits from his calendar sales. I started to feel a bit more with it again. I then went away on Friday for a fabulous weekend with friends to see Jason Donovan. I’ve probably drunken and eaten too much over the past few days, but I’ve also let go. I’ve not been Control Freak Emma (can I get a range of dolls made like Barbie please?!) and I’ve had so much fun.
And on the drive home today it hit me. A week ago, I was a mess. A proper emotional mess. But what I’m learning as I go through widowhood is that while these days and feeling like this will never, ever go away, what has happened and will continue to happen, is that I’m better at managing them, accepting that they’re part of life and being able to bounce back that little bit quicker from them each and every time. I’ve learnt that it’s ok to be vulnerable, but it’s been a heck of a long time since that vulnerability and fear came to the fore as it did last weekend.
Yet that’s ok, and just serves as a very good reminder to be wary of the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy and Father Christmas in future… turns out when they’re mixed with a clumsy person they can be a tad dangerous!
Life is a rollercoaster 