I think of timing all the time. How minutes turn into hours, and hours turn into endless days, seasons rolling into one another and years passing in a blur. I feel as if I am always waiting for something to happen yet nothing ever does. It’s another one of those days where I am finding things to do to keep myself busy. With no work, no partner and no family to occupy my time I am really starting to struggle.
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It’s cold outside but it looks inviting so I decide to take a walk and hope I return home in a better mood. Outside the temperature has plummeted as it’s now January. No, wait, is it February? Unsure, I check the calender on my phone and see that it is January after all which makes my heart sink as I realise i’ve lost track of time. I don’t even care anymore.
I continue walking down the busy high street, passing people wrapped up in coats, couples sharing theirs with each other and children snuggling up to their parents. I feel a sense of desperation as i turn towards the embankment and pick up my pace, shrugging off the cold. I find my usual spot, a bench that is now speckled with the frost the New Year has brought with it which overlooks the river.
As I sit and stare into the icy, breath-taking water, I begin to think of my brother. I miss him so much that I don’t let myself think of him often but today I can’t help it. The pain it brings to my heart is unbearable and for a moment it feels as though that water I am staring into has surrounded me and pulled me under, catching my breath.
James was the best big brother you could wish for, he was my best friend as I grew up and I felt like I had never needed anyone else. He was two years older than me and took on the role as protective big brother but as i was never a real girly girl and didn’t mind watching the odd football game with him, we became friends as well as siblings. He was always the one I could turn to. We came from a loving home, our parents were married and in love which wasn’t so common amongst our school friends, but it gave us hope for the future to find a love just as strong. Obviously we would argue, everyone does, but they never lasted long and when they were between myself and James, he would always be the one to say sorry first, grabbing me under his armpit and ruffling my hair with his knuckles as if it were always just a joke.
He could do no wrong in my parent’s eyes, I know they desperately wished I was as ambitious and as confident as James was, I was told often enough and as I grew up it made it harder to go home after I moved out and a depressing distance crept in between us. Not James though, he was always going to be the core of our family and I was in awe of him for this. He was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy at the age of ten and wheelchair bound by his eleventh birthday. I couldn’t understand where his optimism came from in life, especially after being dealt such a bad hand but it’s as though the illness made him more determined to be a better person, a stronger person. Through school and college he was the ‘cool’ guy, and I was the loser kid with the awesome older brother who everyone adored. I understood why, I idolized him, I still do.
I saw my parent’s disappointment in me, I couldn’t even make it through University whilst James was determined to start work and make a life for himself in anyway he could.
Remembering all this brings a tear to my eye. The winter wind immediately catches my tear and it leaves a painful trail of water down my cheek. I quickly wipe it away and watch my breath as I exhale slowly. I can’t help a sad smile spread form on my lips as I remember the last Christmas I had with James. It was three years ago now but still feels as fresh as if it were the December just gone. He looked so sick, that was the first thing I remembered thinking when i saw him.
I stayed in Leeds after dropping out of University in my second year, unable to cope with missing James and struggling to keep up with the work load. I had every intention to move back home to London until I met my ex husband, a man I fell rapidly in love with who left me with a shattered confidence and a broken heart four years after we had married. We lived together in Leeds and being young and in love i thought at the time it was the most adventurous and exciting start to my life.
I had to see James after my failed marriage, knowing he was the only person who could make me feel better, scolding me for being too young with a typical, ‘I told you so’ remark but giving me the big brother cuddle I desperately needed to help me get through it.
That was what made seeing him so unwell even harder, the strongest link to our family was growing weaker by the day and I could do nothing but watch it happen. Feeling hopeless I would try and do more with the family but towards the end, the last Christmas, I just couldn’t cope with it. The one consistent person in my life, who had never failed me, never expected anything more from me than to return a sibling love was disappearing before my eyes and it was a pain unlike anything I had ever experienced before. It put my ridiculous marriage into perspective, a trivial part of my life in comparison with losing James. I went back up to Leeds a few weeks after James’s funeral as I couldn’t stand to be near anything or anyone who reminded me of him. I hadn’t spoken to my parents since, I couldn’t bare talking to them, realising I was the only child they had left and being such a failure. I couldn’t even get that right.
Thinking of them now made my heart sink, I glanced at my watch, I had been sitting there for over two hours and the sky had started growing darker. I wrapped my coat around myself tighter and reached deep inside my pocket for a cigarette. Smoking had become a bad habit, yet one I strangely enjoyed since I had started University and wasn’t about to give up anytime soon. I lit the end with my lighter and inhaled deeply, feeling the burn in my throat and the tightness in my chest. Pulling on the cigarette got harder as a lump grew in my throat. Tears formed in my eyes as I returned to staring into space, recalling James’s death. At least he’d had one final Christmas. He always loved the lights and the music, especially The Pogue’s ‘Fairytale of New York,’ that was his favourite. I sat there humming the tune in between exhales of smoke, ‘I could have been someone, well so could anyone, you took my dreams from me, when i first found you...’ Tears fell uncontrollably and I decided to go home. It must have been near freezing as I walked back through the park.
Reaching my front door I stopped and fumbled in my pocket for my keys. I felt the pang in my heart for James, for my mum and my dad and eventually realised what I had been waiting for. I wanted to go home, to my real home in London. It had been three years since I had been back, all those seconds, minutes and hours that passed, that had been wasted and which I needed to make up for. I ran inside and picked up the phone. Dialing my parent’s number, sobbing into the receiver, I hoped they would understand so i could finally go back home.