I cannot believe that somehow we’ve made it to five years of living without you. The memory of 19th April 2020 and the weeks leading up to it will never leave me. It still feels beyond surreal. I suspect it always will.
I want to start by saying I’m sorry I lost your wedding ring in 2023. To this day I don’t know how or where that happened. I certainly didn’t anticipate going viral on social media because of it though. But that’s what I’ve learnt these past five years. Expect the unexpected. Don’t try to plan too much. I live in hope that one day I might be reunited with the ring. You were always a blinking nightmare with it anyway, it’s a wonder you hadn’t lost it in the near 15 years you wore it! But I don’t feel losing it diminishes our marriage or the love we had. Your dad said “The ring is in your heart. The band is only a symbol” and he was right. I stopped wearing my engagement and wedding rings relatively soon after you died, there was no big ceremony about it. It was just my hands were so dry after all the washing and the anti-bac I was using. I wore your ashes ring on that finger for a long time, but gradually moved that too. It’s funny the things we do subconsciously.
Anyway. I don’t know the last time I wrote to you. I talk to you a lot of the time though. Heck. Sometimes I even shout at you. Usually at Christmas when I’m lugging the 4,000 boxes in and out of the loft. But throughout the year too. I’ll often pop to the Memorial Bench to get your opinion on things. Fortunate really that nobody can listen to those chats. And I’ve not yet been struck down by lightening so I’ll assume you’re ok with everything. But there’s some things that I’ve never said out loud. Or written. Today feels like the most apposite day to say them.
I know that we spoke to you via Skype on the day you died. I’ve always wondered if you could hear us on that day. I pray you could. I pray that you heard me telling you how much you were loved by so many people. How proud everyone was of you. That you heard me apologise that I couldn’t have kept you safe from the virus. Granted, as time has gone by I’ve accepted that I did all I could to get you the medical help and intervention that you needed. I wasn’t in control of you falling ill, to this day I have no idea where you contracted it from. How COVID-19 entered our world and stole you from us. I don’t think about it anymore, it ate away at me for so long but there really is nothing I could have done that would have changed it. I wish with everything I have that I could have done but this was out of my power.
When I made the announcements via message and on social media that you’d died, I said you’d lost your battle. But the truth is you didn’t lose a battle. You were fighting an enemy that didn’t play fair. Because that virus was indiscriminate with its victims. It just took whoever it wanted to. And I know that you battled so very, very hard Charlie. You fought it for four weeks from coming down with your temperature. You gave it everything you had. You tried to come home to us. But in the end, it was just too strong. One thing you weren’t though was weak. Not at all. I know you mustered all the strength you had to walk down the stairs to the waiting ambulance. I know you did this for our little girl. For her to not see you being carried out of our house. Thank you for doing this for her. I will be eternally grateful that her last image of seeing her father physically is of him having his head held high and showing strength. She needed that to help carry her through.
I’m so very proud of how she’s coped with losing you Charlie. I know you would be too. I’m not entirely sure where I would be without her. It’s dubious I’d still be standing. She’s been absolutely incredible. No 10-year-old child should have gone through what she has. She shouldn’t be growing up without her father. But she’s adjusted. Or should that be adjusting? I don’t know if she’ll ever really come to terms with it, how can she? You are going to miss so many special and important occasions, I know that she will be missing you and thinking of you on each and every one of them. As will I. As will so many other people.
It makes my heart swell at how loved you still are. How I still get messages from people that something they’ve done has made them think of you. Even people who may have only met you once or twice. Your impact and legacy on the world hasn’t been forgotten. I doubt it ever will be. I said I didn’t want you to be a number or statistic of the pandemic, it’s not been easy but somehow through my writing and all the fundraising we’ve done, you’re not. Five years on and people still talk about you. That’s pretty good going don’t you think?
By no means am I taking full credit for this. Family and friends continue to keep your memory alive. They, like me, go to your Memorial Bench for a chat. They leave you cans of beer (I do wonder if this is why a bin was mysteriously put up next to the bench last year!) They still share photos and memories of you. The community that came together at last year’s CharlieFest said it all. The people in that room were there because of you. I might have organised it, but they were there because of you. I doubt you’d have ever expected it. If anyone could have told you what was going to happen following your death, I’m pretty sure you’d have said “give over” and rolled your eyes. You always were so humble and unassuming. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not turning you into a saint and saying you were perfect, I’ve not gone delusional in my grief, but you were a good man. A decent human being.
It’s why I struggled for so long with why you were chosen as a victim of that virus. Why so many good people lost their lives as a result of it. I know you’d have said that it was your time (yes, I do remember that heated discussion just a few weeks before you fell ill about losing people ahead of their time!) but it still didn’t make sense. But that’s the thing with death isn’t it? I think of some of the other losses I’ve experienced since you died, none of them have really made sense. Another COVID-19 death, a tragic accident, a symptomless condition. All young people. All people taken too soon. Yes, you may eye roll at that statement, but to my mind they were. I like to think that you’re up there having a beer or a glass of red with them. Probably despairing at me a tad with one of them. But I also hope that you’ve managed to have a cuddle with your nanny. Family and friends were always so important to you, I can’t imagine that has changed.
You’d have been so grateful and appreciative for the family and friends who have helped hold us up since your death. The kindness that has been shown to us. I suspect you’d have been as surprised as I was at the people who did show up for us, the people who didn’t know how to support us, the people who are no longer in our lives as predominantly and the new people who have come in. I’m so sorry I couldn’t keep all the relationships the same as when you were alive. But this was something else that was outside of my control. I know people needed me to be but I was never the villain in this story, I was simply heartbroken and lost. A woman trying to find her way in her new life, one that she should never have been living. A woman simply trying to do the right thing by you and her daughter. I had no energy to give to other people. I had no fight left in me. It became easier to let people go than have to explain myself or fight for them to stay.
You see for so long Charlie, I was simply trying to survive. I had to focus on our daughter. Not even me so much. Her. She was and is my number one priority. We didn’t really live. We just went through the motions. We had to put all our efforts into survival. It sounds remarkably simple to put that in words. To say all we had to do was survive. But it wasn’t. It really bloody wasn’t. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I wish someone could have given me a manual. Who knows whether I’d have believed it or paid attention to it, however. You know me. Always know best right?
Yet I haven’t really known best. I haven’t really known how to climb and survive this insurmountable grief mountain. I’d never been an adult without you. I hadn’t anticipated needing to become one at the age of 39. I don’t know whether I’ve done everything right these past five years. Yet I know I wouldn’t change anything I’ve done though. Because every decision I’ve made, l’ve done so with the emotions and information I had available at the time. Overthinking has probably become my trademark, but sometimes I have just had to trust my gut. Without overthinking. I did it the day you died when I was given the heartbreaking decision of saying goodbye to you in person but only if I then isolated away from our daughter. That was a split second gut decision. I know you’d have agreed it was the right one to stay with her and not see you. So I have tried to remember that. I regularly ask myself “what would Charlie say?” and “what would Charlie do?” when I face tricky situations. I try to listen to you still, you’ve become that voice in my head now that I look to for guidance.
As I write this, I can see the look on your face and the sarcastic “hmmm, really?” Okay. I admit. I didn’t ask myself what you would do when I chose the kitchen and conservatory floors, I know you’d have hated them! I also didn’t ask myself what you’d have done when booking six Jason Donovan gigs on the same tour. “It’s the same setlist Em, it’s the same show, what is the point?” might have been the polite version of what you’d have said. But I’ve very much needed these dates these past few months, I underestimated just how hard the fifth anniversary was going to hit me. I hope you don’t begrudge me the things that make me smile and bring me joy, it’s all part of discovering me and who I am. I feel the same about the people who are in my life now, I hope you don’t begrudge me moving forwards and making new friends. That you appreciate what they’ve offered me, what they’ve taught me and introduced me to. The juxtaposition that people have come into my life only because you’re no longer in it messes with my head at times. I often wonder what you would think of them. I’m sure you’d approve. But most of all, I hope you don’t begrudge me living again. It’s taken me such a long time to be able to do so. I truly do feel that you’d want me to do this. You wouldn’t have wanted your death to be the thing that destroyed me or our daughter, of that I’m sure.
It’s why I’ve tried to be brave and push myself out of my comfort zone. Our trip to the West Coast of the USA last year is a prime example of that and also showed how much of a part of our lives you continue to be. You and I had always planned that trip for my 40th and so we finally did it. The guide on the boat when whale watching asked who had good karma because of the incredible pods of orcas we were seeing. I don’t believe it was karma. I believe it was you. To show how proud of us you were for making that trip. The trip to Crystal River and swimming with the manatees when we went to Florida in 2022 that you’d always wanted to do. I owe it to you to do these things. To do the things you’d always wanted to do (within reason though obviously!)
But just on the living again. I’m sorry that I haven’t been as frugal as you probably would have wanted me to be. That I’ve made crazy decisions. But Charlie, for such a long time, I was so scared. Scared to not do things. Scared to not seize opportunities. Scared of my life ending too. Scared to say no to things. Scared to say no to people in case something happened to them. But my fear is slowly abating now. I don’t know if it will ever completely go, but it’s definitely abating. For the first time in about five years, I feel as though I’m on an even keel again. That I’m actually in control. I can’t promise there won’t still be the odd crazy decision, but I think I’m likely to be more measured about things now. Maybe. Possibly. Hopefully.
I don’t really know what is going to come next. At times the scriptwriters seem to be having a bit of a laugh when it comes to my story. But I think you’d like the person I’m becoming. The version of Emma in her 40s is very different to the version of her in her 20s and 30s. She’s probably the person you always wanted her to be. It’s ironic that I’ve probably only become this person because of all I’ve gone through these past five years. Of what I’ve learnt about me. But I think you’d quite like that in a way, it shows the impact you’re still having. And I hope you’ll continue to watch over us. That you’ll continue to make your presence felt. For everyone who knew and loved you. I’m not the only one who has felt you still around, an energy and a soul as great as yours was always going to leave a mark on this world.
What I do know is that we’re entering a period of change. Her first lead role in a show. GCSEs. Leaving school. Where we’ll live. Possibly moving house. My career. It all feels pretty daunting to be making these decisions without you. To be second guessing myself that I’m doing “the right thing.” But we’re back to that trusting of the gut again aren’t we? I have to trust myself that I know what is best for Team Charlesworth. Both as individuals and as a team. And if I get it wrong? Well, then we’ll just learn. You once found a quote you liked that included the line “you will never lose, you will either win or learn.” That’s how I have to look at life now. We’ve already lost so much, something good and positive has got to come out of it for both her and I now. We need to start winning. So, I need to grasp life with both hands and learn from it. It’s simply all I can do. It’s all any of us can do really.
I don’t know when I’ll next write to you Charlie. But that doesn’t mean I won’t be thinking of you. That you won’t still be a massive part of my life. Of our daughter’s life. Photos of you are still up at home. That won’t ever change. I promise you that. But I do need to continue being just Emma now. I need to not be Charlie and Emma. It’s time. You understand that. I know you do. I know how proud of me you are for all I’ve done to get me to this point. The hours I’ve spent in therapy. The tears I’ve shed. The trauma I’ve processed. The clawing myself back from rock bottom. Thank you for loving me and giving me the strength I needed to be able to do all of this without you. To work out a way of living as a young widow and solo parent. I wouldn’t be the woman I am now without all you taught me and the love you gave me for two decades.
I miss you Charlie. I love you Charlie.
After all this time? Always.
Xx
Life is a rollercoaster 