I watched a montage of home movies made by LB’s granddad Pat yesterday evening. He put it together from over 9 hours of footage in the weeks after LB’s death. I couldn’t get beyond the first moments till yesterday. When I wanted to re-capture insights/memories … I dunno. What are they? Precious moments that add texture to a shortened life…?

I saw LB as a babe. That beautiful face. Seriously, seriously cute. I mean, seriously cute. That laughter. Pure delight. That bounciness. Waiting and expecting and receiving the spray with the garden hose, the circuit of granddad’s garden on the sun lounger. The infectious laughter. The repeated Christmas rituals, unwrapping a truck/bus or lorry that needed full on package removal. More bouncing. Joseph in the nativity play. Joseph? I’d forgotten that. And what a serious Joseph he was. An exercise in concentration among the typical, noisy, joyful chaos of a John Watson school performance.

I was reminded of LB’s mannerisms, his character, his intense quirkiness. And that ease in lying on the floor, pretty much anywhere. Completely immersed in moving a bus/lorry backwards and forwards. Time and place irrelevant. A completeness of being. Magical and remarkable rule breaching.

Watching him now, on these fading home movies, I’m winded by indescribable loss. And enraged at the vile system that defined him as deficient. That muddied who he was for us for a while. And ultimately killed him.

My beautiful, beautiful dude. One year on, I carry you around in my heart and think of you every moment I step outside and look up at the sky. And with each bus, coach and Eddie Stobart lorry that passes. You were, and always will be, a bloody legend.

xxxx