November 2020

I'm taking the rare step of writing this blog in parts over the course of the month. It's been... the worst month. And reliving the events over again in text form at the end of it feels quite unbearable. So I'm doing it now, midway through. I guess I could have just skipped this month, but I've been doing this for so long now, it would feel somehow like cheating. Life brings good and bad, and things have been a mixture for me over the years, but not like this before.

But I mean, things started out fine. Me and Spen discovered our shared passion of the Bond movies, and decided to watch them ALL in chronological order. I didn't document Dr. No, so we're launching in here from the second one, From Russia With Love. It holds up pretty well in some respects, though not without it's problematic elements...

Uni is a lot, but sometimes you get to meet a nice new typeface, so that's something.

Group work is super stressful, but we slowly managed to find some kind of focus, pondering how we see the internet and what these mental maps we have mean for the ways we connect with one another.

I'm tired of zooming.

And then the boy got real sick. You've never seen so much shit in your life. I should have realised something was wrong. But he's been ill before, he gets upset tummies semi-regularly, so we just did what we usually would, which was give him 24 hours and if he was still bad, we figured we'd take him to the vet. 

I can hardly bear to talk about it. He was so ill. Why didn't we realise there was something so wrong?! 

We came down to him the next morning, and he was gone. He had died in the night. Just like that. The best friend I've ever had. The most perfect, pure light, snuffed out. We had shut him in my housemate's bathroom to sleep because he was so ill, and he died alone in that small, cold, lino-floored room. 

I have never howled so loud. I have never known utter desolation like it. 

Every time I think I might be feeling better, my brain flashes back to seeing his soft, sweet little body, cold on the floor. He was the most perfect creature I had ever met, and he was MINE! I got to snuggle up with him every night, and he loved me with such perfect, unquestioning sweetness. 

I have never grieved for a human like this. His loss is unbearable and I still can't really imagine ever feeling true happiness again. I know that sounds like hyperbole and I know things will get easier, but there's just this void inside me that was never there before. 

This is his collar tag. The unfathomable boy. But the older he got, the more we understood each other. The closer we got. I was so excited to live out the rest of his life with him. He was only 8.

We realised pretty quickly what had happened. He was prescribed some painkillers for his achey hips, in the hope that they might make the physiotherapy he was having more impactful. They were the same liquid painkillers we'd given him when he originally hurt himself last christmas, and again a couple of times during the year, most recently I think in July. We were used to giving them to him. But this time, for some reason, the vet gave us a different sized syringe. Previously, his dose was 'full syringe', for a 15kg dog. However, 'full syringe' of this larger syringe was a dose for a 70kg dog. We dosed him for a 70kg dog, without realising, without checking. He had just two doses. And then he was gone. 

Of course, it was an easy mistake to make. One anyone could have made. No one's fault. But ultimately, our fault. We killed our best friend. I and my partner are still deeply in love with one anothr. In fact, we are clinging onto one another for dear life. But grief shared is not grief halved. Grief shared is waking up at 3am sobbing at one another. Grief shared is lying awake at 5am in complete silence, knowing that the brightest light in your life is gone, and it's your fault. Grief shared is being unable to eat or drink. Everything hurts, everything reminds us of him. 

I can stop crying if I can stop thinking about it. For even a moment. Watching another Bond as a distraction for just a couple of short hours.

People are kind. There are flowers. There are chocolates. I enjoy them all on some level, but also find it torture on another level. Why are people giving me gifts?! I don't deserve gifts?! I fucked up the best thing in my life. The most loved boy, by so many people. I don't deserve anything. 

It's just torture.

Two people sent me very generous hampers full of artisan vegan cheese to try and soothe my woes. While the above sentiments of not deserving anything still apply, these bought me more joy than I could have imagined feeling at this stage. (And more generally, the way people have rallied round to support me has meant a huge amount. Special shout out to my old neighbour in Hebden Bridge who phoned and listened to me absolutely howl at her for over half an hour.) 

 I had just bought Charlie a brand new 15kg sack of kibble/goobles/croquettes (delete according to your vernacular), and it was sitting around making me miserable. Battersea dogs home don't take food donations, but the local homeless shelter was very pleased to recieve it. I can barely lift 15kg, so my friend Sarah very kindly drove a ridiculously long distance to pick it up and drop it off for me, and we had a socially distanced chips in the park. I cried but I did not completely lose my shit and wail, which felt like progress.

Since moving to London the rain mostly stopped bothering me, it doesn't have the same bleak, grinding greyness as it did in the valley somehow. But it still gets me down, especially when I'm already down. Felt very strange not to be forcing myself to go out in it as I previously would have done. Found myself wishing I had reasons to leave the house.

Thunderball is... really bad?! Apparently it was the biggest grossing Bond film of all time but it's mostly just interminable underwater diving scenes. Weirdly disappointing, though not without some highlights.

I told my tutors at uni what happened, and they offered me time off, but I didn't really feel able to take it, as I was already feeling the pressure, and terrified of falling behind. 

Our next large project until Christmas is a visual essay, of which we get to determine the subject. Despite mourning for a pet, during the course of the previous couple of weeks I had encountered many of the same tropes we encounter when mourning a person. Dated script fonts, soft focus images of the crematorium, bad poetry, embossed white 'with sympathies' cards with delicate drawings of flowers... It got me to thinking about the Western visual language of grief and whether it helps or hinders us when processing grief. (Also interesting side avenues around the commercialisation of death and how impersonal these materials are at what should be such a personal period of rememberance)

Anyway, this is what I'm thinking about and trying to formulate into some kind of coherant piece of writing/design, so wish me luck... (And please get in touch if you have any experience of grieving and remember how impacted, or not, you were by the materials surrounding you at that time)

A mess of a brain

My partner's friend Nick very kindly invited us to come out and hang out with his 1 year old Shibe Inu Miko, if we wanted to. We did want to. Miko is a sweetheart and we have a fun (socially distanced) park time.

I haven't really mentioned this, but ever since July this year I have been a fully trained up Samaritans phone listener, working 4.5 hour shifts 3 times a month. We're generally discouraged from being too loud about our role on social media (as it could put off someone we knew who might have been thinking about phoning, in case they got the person they knew) (Even though the chances of that are extraordinarily low given how infrequent our shifts are and how many volunteers there are across the country).

But anyway, it's a real privilege to offer people support through some of the bleakest, wildest shit you can imagine humans having to experience.

I had to take a couple of weeks off though, as I wasn't feeling emotionally stable enough to carry out the role. I decided I was ready to return, but right before I came into my shift I had a text from a friend with some horrible sad news, and the moment I saw my shift leader (who knew what had happened with Charlie) and he asked me how I was doing, with his gentle, kind, Samaritans voice, I just became a total blubbering wreck.

(As an aside, in the days immediately after Charlie's death, I wasn't suicidal at all, but I felt, like no other time in my life, the need to absolutely wail, and also to talk in detail about my experience of his death, which was very traumatic in a number of ways. Although lots of friends offered to talk to me, I didn't want to put that weight of grief and experience onto them, so I called both the Samaritans and Blue Cross Pet Bereavement phoneline. They were both very helpful, and even though I knew exactly how the Samaritan would treat me and pretty much what they would say to me, I still needed to hear it all, but more importantly, needed the ability to vent and wail in private. If you're ever feeling overwhelmed by life, even if you're not suicidal, I truly encourage you to call (or email) the Samaritans. Hearing a calm, gentle, caring voice on the other end of the phone who you can tell anything and be truly honest about how you're feeling and what you're experiencing is HUGE, and the whole reason I do what I do there is because I know how much it matters.)

Anyway my shift leader told me to go home but after the immediate wave of grief passed, I did stay for half my shift and just did emails, which gave me something to feel worthwhile about. Hopefully by next shift I'll be back up to speed on taking calls again.

The bad news I recieved was about the original very good boy, Stompy. Long time readers of this blog might possibly remember him, he belonged to my good friend Jess, and during my early/mid twenties in Brighton he was a regular fixture in my life, often coming over for mini-breaks or days out, and we would often take him out walking. We even had a canal boat holiday together one time! Anyway, he reached the ripe old age of 15, but Jess texted me to tell me he hadn't eaten or drunk for 48 hours and she was really scared. Right before I went into my Samaritans shift she got the news from the vet that he needed to be put to sleep, and they would do it the following day. 

Unlike Charlie of course, his death would be peaceful, controlled, and planned, and he had reached a beautiful ripe old age, but for Jess this was still every bit as devastating as my loss of Charlie, having had him as her constant companion for over a decade. I would have shed a tear for Stompy's loss regardless of my own current circumstances, but its timing did feel particularly cruel. 

Good night to two of the very goodest boys. What a horrible cruel month.

In the spirit of completionism, we watched the original 1967 Casino Royale, which let me tell you, is... not anything like the Daniel Craig Casino Royale. Or any other Bond movie ever. It was made by a totally different production company, with totally different actors (though Ursula Andress, the first Bond girl from Dr. No reappears, but in an entirely unrelated role). It is basically a parody of the other Bond movies thus far, but it was marketed as a straightlaced regular Bond film for its cinematic release, which left viewers bemused to say the least. "The chaotic nature of the production features heavily in contemporary and later reviews. Roger Ebert said "This is possibly the most indulgent film ever made"... Time described Casino Royale as "an incoherent and vulgar vaudeville" and Variety declared the film to be "a conglomeration of frenzied situations, ‘in’ gags and special effects, lacking discipline and cohesion."

It also has an utterly weird and wonderful cast, including Woody Allen, Peter Sellers, David Niven, Orson Welles and... Ronnie Corbett?

Anyway if you're a fan of Bond movies and you want to waste an incomprehensible but nonetheless kind of enjoyable couple of hours, this is worth a look in...

One way which I really did not expect to feel was 'ready for another dog'. Of course I'd thought about what would happen when Charlie died before he was gone, but I'd imagined it would be a number of years in the future, and that I probably wouldn't want another dog for a long time after his passing. Maybe I'd travel! Or take the opportunity to have an office job! 

But having him wrenched away so suddenly and unexpectedly has left a huge dog-shaped hole in my heart and my home, and even as soon as the day after his death I lay awake in bed late at night, tearfully browsing shelters and imagining what it would feel like to love another dog pal.

Could I love another dog pal? Would anyone ever compare to Charlie? I mean, no, but also, dogs are inherently loveable, and the moment I saw FAT TED, I realised that yes, I could love again.

One thing that became very quickly apparent was that everyone wants a dog for lockdown, and for once, shelters are really struggling with demand/supply ratios for dogs right now. Which is good for dogs, but bad for sad humans like me. 

In the knowledge that maybe this was grief acting, I decided nonetheless to reach out to a few relevant shelters to at least get on a waiting list, in the knowledge that it might be many months wait before there's a friend for me (In my favour is that I've cared for a difficult breed — collies — and that Charlie was originally a rescue, but a big down-mark is that I don't have a garden, which I suspect pushes me very far down the list on many larger shelters, even though I have lived happily with a dog here for well over a year.)

I was recommended Dogs Blog by (also recently dog bereaved) Jess, as that's where smaller, more obscure shelters post, and we had fun browsing for friends together.  

I fell in love with beautiful, fine-maned Geordie, but his shelter, after some initial enthusiasm about me, ruled me out due to no garden.

Wiccaweys shelter are doing wonderful work caring for a wide range of collie and collie adjacent dogs. I definitely can't take two, probably not even one this big, but Thelma and Louise are a joy and seeing their social media content on the Wiccaweys instagram has been a cheering force.

Finally there was Watson, who seems like a very sweet boy, but his foster carer seems very flakey in terms of actually wanting to find him a new home (maybe he's so good she wants to keep him?!)

Anyway, suffice to say, there's a long road ahead in terms of getting a new pal, especially when all I really want is my old pal back, but in absence of that being possible, I am doing what I can to find a new friend.

Here's maybe the saddest visual diary I've ever drawn.

Finally managed to get inducted to the letterpress workshop at LCC, yessssss. Was horribly precocious and over excited, and really hope I'll be able to use it lots as they have ssoooo muccchhhhh stuff, and are super experimental and fun in terms of what you can do there. 

One of the additional stresses this month was that, during Charlie's last-but-one night, he was incredibly unwell on our sofa. Not just your regular 'bit of a bad tummy'. It was, frankly, a shit-tastrophe. Honestly, all I could do in the moment was laugh at how bad it was, though obviously the following day, after he was gone, I was absolutely devastated with myself for not recognising that something was more wrong than just a regular upset stomach. Anyway, despite being covered with throws, the sofa was in a very bad way (and it was the landlords). I paid to get it profesionally cleaned, but to no avail, and the lingering smell of shit in the living room three weeks on was frankly a depressing reminder of loss and heartbreak (as well as just being, y'know, a constant smell of shit). So I bit the bullet and got rid of the old sofa and bought a new one from Ikea. (All told, Charlie's death has cost me around £750, from crematorium costs, professional clean of the sofa and the room where he died, removal of sofa, and new sofa, which I will have to leave behind whenever I move out as it's just a replacement for the landlord's one.) Frankly a hefty chunk out of my savings feels like the least punishment I deserve for what happened, but it still stings.

Anyway, we had a fun/stressful evening rearranging the living room in anticipation of our new (slightly smaller but infinitely more comfortable) sofa arriving the next day.

And arrive it did! (Though I also ordered a rug and Ikea just DIDN'T INCLUDE IT and the delivery men lied and said they had, and Ikea are entirely uncontactable, so that's another stress but ANYWAY) Me and Tabitha spent a gleeful morning assembling it, and then I dashed straight into uni to have a fun play with the riso printer. Me and three other people on my course agreed to meet up so that if it was stressful (and it was) we'd have backup to try and figure things out. It was nice to do some experimentation, and see everyone else's work — this is a collage I made of Mareena's arabic glitchy 'Peace', and Sarah's raincoat print. 

I printed this year's christmas cards, so if/when you recieve one from me, please be mindful that I made them under great stress and technical experimentation. Oh and also they're just a single sheet rather than a folded card because I haven't done my print finishing induction yet, SORRRYYYYYYYY (but I've gotta count the pennies where I can after this month's catastrophe....)

Both me and Spen agreed that 'You only live twice' was our favourite Bond movie so far. Utterly silly and fast paced from start to finish, though probably most notorious for its preeeeetttty problematic racism (Sean Connery in utterly shit yellow-face anyone?)

Anyway, here we are at the end somehow. I'm glad I wrote this blog in parts as I am utterly overloaded with uni work right now, and they just keep piling more on. I'm very tired and quite stressed, but to be honest the more occupied my brain is the better. I'm not crying every day any more but there is a constant sadness in my head that I have never experienced before, even at my lowest. It feels like I'm just trying to get through every day, every hour, without thinking about him. Without missing him. Without hating myself. I can't imagine how I will ever feel better, though I know one day I will. I just have to keep going until then, I guess.