In May, the Health and Safety Executive asked if we wanted to write a Victim Personal Statement that would be shared with the judge in the prosecution against Sloven. They offered support to write it while acknowledging we probably wouldn’t need it. At the time I thought it would be a ‘minor task’. I mean I write, howl and rage on an almost daily basis.
Eight weeks later the statement remains unwritten. Well that’s not strictly true. I circulated a brief draft to Rich, Rosie, Will, Owen and Tom last week. Rosie fed back it was pretty rubbish and contrived (in less brutal words than these).
“Can’t you use an old blog post…?” she asked.
We said we’d talk about it this weekend because we’d all be together for Tom’s 18th party.
The party was on Friday night. It was pretty raucous with a lot of laughter, food and drink. Late evening with the dodgy disco light doing its thing, a Bowie track came on and the room of lively, loud and exuberant 18 year olds became a bit blurry. Rosie was there with a hug. The family grief morse code working as it seems to.
On Saturday morning after a brief party debrief and some groaning about sore heads we talked about the statement and I jotted down notes about what it should contain. This was largely a checklist of Sloven crap actions. We didn’t talk about the impact of Connor’s death on us which is what the statement is supposed to be about.
Later that day, attention turned to the disappeared pond in the front garden. Owen and I dragged the second of two monstrous plants out of the pond and left it sitting upright on the grass overnight. A solid, giant mass of roots, smelly black sludge and detritus with an enormous crown of green fronds that wouldn’t look out of place on a Doctor Who episode.
Rich dug the pond with the kids about 12 years ago now. It was a major operation based on serious pond research. Considerable depth in parts, different levels, shallow shelves for inhabitants to clamber in and out of, grey blankety stuff underneath the rubber sheeting and a couple of plants from an aquatic garden centre in Wheatley. A pond was born.
Life went on. Pond life flourished. We kept the weeds at bay for several years and children from the local primary school visited to see the frog spawn and tadpoles.
The two plants grew. And grew. Life took an unexpected turn. The pond disappeared under the foliage and was largely forgotten about. Apart from a hilarious dog sitting experience a year or so ago when Ned, a husky-cross, went for an unexpected stinky black cool down.
On Sunday morning, I was outside drinking coffee and studying the beached plant which was almost as tall as me and twice as wide. A woman stopped and said primly:
Ah. You’re attacking the jungle. Good! Have you just moved in?
Er, no. We’ve lived here for sixteen years…
She wandered off.
Owen and Tom set up camp in the afternoon for a couple of hours with music, borrowed footwear and gloves, an axe, spade and pair of shears, and the plant eventually disappeared into various bins around the neighbourhood. They later threw themselves into topping up the pond with a hose too short.
It’s incredibly hard to write a ‘personal victim statement’. The impact is unimaginable for each of us in different ways, at different times, in different spaces and with different people.
The fabric of family life continues to be brightly woven with people who didn’t meet LB. Partners, a baby due in November. Life goes on. My camera continues to capture delights. And they are delights.
The moments in between, and occasionally during, remain filled with an unresolvable ache that feels like a rock at the back of my throat or my chest being crushed. I don’t know if people’s hearts actually ache but for me it’s a throat/breathing thing which seems to have a direct line to tear production.
I just miss him.
We all do.
mydaftlife 