The journey back to Leicester in Uncle Paul’s car was a quiet one, i was sore and tired, but most of all i was scared to fall asleep. Aunt Sharon kept looking back at me tentatively smiling at me. I’m guessing she could sense how scared i was feeling being back in a car. My Uncle Paul made small talk obviously trying to keep my mind occupied.
There is only so much i can remember about what happened after we arrived back in Leicester, things like opening an envelope the hospital had given me with all Dad’s personal belongings in. Like the rings i saw him wear everyday of my life, that were now misshapen and blood stained, his watch now broken in to two and his horse shoe shaped wallet…..i thought seeing the blood stained misshapen rings were bad enough, but when i opened his wallet small shards of blood stained glass fell out, and sitting there inside all on its own was a new scratched picture of my mum, my dad and myself. As soon as i saw my dads face…..the face of the man who had been my hero( who will always be), my protector, i completely lost it. I broke down in tears for the first time since i’d woken up in hospital, the realization of what had happened. that my dad..MY DAD! was gone and was never coming back. It all hit me and i just sat there and sobbed and sobbed. I felt a pair of arms wrap around me, it was my cousin Terena, she had heard me crying and came in to the room. We sat on the bed and she held me so tight, as we both cried and cried. Everything fades past in a blur for the next few weeks, i carried on with things like i was in a bubble. I went back to school…it was strange not seeing Mum there everyday with the year 1 class or in assembly or at lunch. The funerals of Dad, Nan and Joe (OMG Joe’s coffin was so tiny) pass by and life begins to get a new kind of normality.
