The truth about anniversaries
Not this again.
There are 365 days in a year – or 366, on occasion – and it is odd, sometimes, to think that each one of them is significant in some way to somebody out there. An inconsequential to you 29th of whenever, or a 3rd of sometime ages ago, is a red letter day on someone else’s calendar. Anniversaries, births, deaths, marriages, lost cherries, new jobs, first kisses, catastrophes, new homes; every single day has its relevance. Recently a viral post on one of the attention-sapping scrolloramas asked what people in the UK thought of 4 July; did they mourn the loss of their colony, mark the occasion? The replies varied wildly yet were still predictably rude, but the overall gist was ‘it’s just a day’.
Just a day. Aren’t they all?
The day someone dies means nothing to them. It is not part of their story, although if you are left behind, it is a pivotal chapter in yours. There is a before, and there is an after. The before takes on a mythical quality, much like some people pretend the country was perfect around the time of the 2012 Olympics and has suffered a rapid decline ever since. The truth is that the before, a time when the date that now fills you with dread was one you’d barely notice, was no less annoying or terrible than now, apart from one major change – they were still around, at the end of a text, or on the other side of a door as you knocked upon it. Now, silence. Even if things were bad, at least they weren’t this bad.
I have acquired, in the years following the death of my friend, six years ago this week, a terrible habit. I will search for a certain date in my phone’s Photos app, and look back at the decade-plus of pictures documenting my digital life, and look for signs that show the difference between the before and the after. There are inconsistencies – rollercoasters, like mortgage payments, go up as well as down – so some years I actually look much better, despite the dark cloud just out of shot. But I can see beyond the outward physical presentation; I can look deep into my own eyes and I can remember what I was thinking or feeling when that photograph was taken and I can acknowledge that the after is just not as special. I am envious, slightly, of the ‘before’ me, the idiot who didn't know what was coming, and did what we all do before the universe drops a bomb on us, and dared to still believe in for ever.
A light has gone out, I cannot deny it, and nor would I want to. My approach to everything is different, stained somehow, because the world does not feel as good as it did when she was in it, and there is no escape from it. I sometimes think to myself that it’s like a strong bolt drawn over a part of myself I can no longer access. I still have fun, I still laugh, but there’s an aftertaste, the bitterness that makes you stop, and think ‘ah, but of course’.
Thresholds of impatience and enjoyment have shifted and I can now, at times, be spectacularly humourless which feels like a bad photocopy of who I used to be. My knack for witty social media posts has dulled and I rarely bother now, and though I still enjoy writing to make people smile or laugh, I find myself less inclined toward comedy.
One of the most unsettling things about the whole situation is that life really does go on. My journey into town is now different travelling from my new house – which she would’ve loved, and I think of her constantly in a place she has never been. It is an overland train, and from my window on the gliding Southeastern I am treated to clusters of new towers and developments rocketing up to the sky at an alarming late. Something about it is comforting, the future unfurling before your eyes, brutal and unemotional progress, but it’s also a reminder that our relationship is now a historical artefact. She never saw this. If, by some miracle, she were to come back, she would barely recognise the world, even after only six years. We have moved forward, if not moved on, and have adapted to the change.
Sometimes I hear a song she would’ve loved, or watch a show I know she’d have watched and we would’ve talked about and feel an emptiness that yearns for shape. When I buy clothes, I imagine what she would think of them, can almost hear the compliment, a bell ringing lightly and joyfully in the back of my mind somewhere. I recently heard a bit of gossip about someone we knew over twenty years ago and my fingertips lit up with anticipation, but it had nowhere to go, discharging in the air like static electricity.
What would she have thought of all this, I sometimes think, of who we all are now she left us behind, of the fallout and the recovery and the equilibrium? Unfortunately guessing is no substitute for knowing for sure. When I look at the before era, I see only the past, quaint almost in its completion, because we know what happens next, as much as we don’t like to face it.
It is just another week. It is just another day. When it comes, we will face it, and once it’s over, we will sigh with relief but then start again the countdown to the next significant date that has been both blessed and cursed with this new poignancy.
But misery is an unfitting tribute to a life well lived by a person much loved. So I will close my eyes, turn my face to the sun and be glad I am still here to miss her, and remember her.
Just another day.
It's 50 years ago this month since I lost my mother. I was nine. You can imagine how much I've mourned her, and I still do. I have always regarded my mourning as a testament to my love for her, I know she loved me. This also keeps her present in my life, as your late friend is still in yours. It hurts because it matters but it also means they are not forgotten. Keeping her in your life is what you can do, remember her positively and continue to make use of that relationship. Gain strength from these feelings, try not to let them overwhelm you, at least not all the time.
My loss is still so raw and recent but already I see the truth in this and thank you for writing it