I’ve talked about this in the past.
How when a terrible event happens, everyone rallies around you.
How they give you comfort and love for the worst time of your life.
But the next day, it changes.
Not because they’re mean or unkind or unthoughtful … it’s just they have their own issues and situations to deal with.
But for you, you are alone.
Floating in the wilderness.
More isolated than you were before.
Caught in the no mans land between pain and grief.
Numb and confused.
Yes it gets better. But it doesn’t go away. And on the anniversary, it all comes rushing back.
Nothing captures this like a story I read recently in The Atlantic.
Tragedy. Love. Conspiracy. Hope. Despair. Loneliness.
It had it all, but never expressed with hyperbole or exaggeration. Just raw feelings of confusion, loss and guilt – interspersed with a desire to be angry at someone … anyone … to try and make sense of the impossible.
It’s one of the most powerful things I’ve read about that fateful day on September 11th 2001.
Everyone should read it.
To understand what tens of thousands of people try to understand and deal with every single day.
Which is my way of saying that while tomorrow there will be tens of thousands of people all around the world feeling like the worst memory of their life is being thrust back into their present, I am thinking of you … Dave, David and Andy.
Big hugs. Bigger love.
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No comments please. This is for them.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Childhood, Comment, Corona Virus, Daddyhood, Emotion, Empathy, Family, Fatherhood, Jill, London, Love, Otis
I found this photo recently.
It’s a few years old, when we lived in London … but there’s something about it that just warms my heart.
Not just because it features my son – though that helps – but because it in a period of pandemic chaos, it shows how love can make everything OK.
Covid had just taken hold.
We were all confined to home.
No one was offering any clarity.
People were dying at unprecedented numbers.
And Otis desperately needed his hair washing.
However …
… he was also playing a video game he absolutely didn’t want to stop playing so – because his world had been turned completely upside down – his wonderful, kind, considerate Mum found a way for him to keep playing while she could do some hair washing.
Obviously it is an utterly ridiculous way to do things, but it’s my ridiculous.
A moment of twisted normality at a time where nothing felt normal whatsoever.
And while I appreciate this is an utterly indulgent photograph, I love the way he seems oblivious to his surroundings. His little legs stretched out to the tip of his toes. And a kitchen that has been rapidly turned into a school, a playroom and a hairdressers all at the same time.
While we were painfully aware of the privileged position we were in – from having an income to having a teeny garden to escape in – the fear of COVID was starting to take a hold which is why, as I look at that photo today, I realise how much my ridiculously beautifully family let me feel we were strong together at a point where everything was feeling like it was falling apart.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Family, Mischief
… they are called Tony and have their birthday party at Legoland in England.
Then there’s the parents who call their kid Telemachus … and they either need arresting or need to write the next Transformers movie.
When Otis was young, we bought him a book called The Invisible String.
It’s a delightful book about family … love … and connection … and helps kids understand the idea of being together even when their parents aren’t around. Whether that’s because they’re at work or have sadly passed.
I write this because 6 years ago today, my wonderful, beautiful Mum died.
It seems so long ago and yet I can remember every second of that day.
From waking up early to see her before her operation … to the rise of worry as she was in theatre for longer than the person before her … to the relief when she came out and I could sit by her side … to the confusion I felt when the nurse asked me to sit somewhere else as an alarm started to sound … to the horrible, painful moment the doctor and nurse told me the worst thing that could happen, had happened.
And like when my Dad died, the memories of her are consumed by the moments of this day.
However, also like my Dad, I know that will eventually pass to be replaced by the moments of love, happiness and wonder I shared with her.
She was an amazing woman.
Her capacity for compassion knew no bounds.
I felt – like with Dad – loved and supported, even at my most ‘difficult’ times …
Her loss was – and still is – a huge hole in my life.
She never got to meet Otis.
She never got to know we had moved to America … then England … and now NZ.
She never got to see the beautiful garden at our house in Herefordshire or the mad treehouse in Auckland.
But I know she would be happy about it all.
And that makes me happy for very different reasons.
Because while for her, it would be that her only son was enjoying his life, for me it would be that I am making my Mum proud.
That’s all I want to do.
Always.
I miss you Mum.
I can still feel our string.
I hope you’re holding hands with Dad and laughing at my jetlag.
Love you.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Colenso, Comment, Confidence, Creativity, Culture, Dad, England, Family, Fatherhood, Friendship, Goodbye England, Home, Jill, London, Love, Mum, Mum & Dad, My Fatherhood, New Zealand, Otis, Paul, Perspective, Planning, R/GA, Shelly
So even though we are not leaving for NZ for a month, this is my last post for at least a month.
Moving countries always requires a bunch of things to be done, and despite us being old hands at it, doing it during a pandemic means we have a bunch more stuff to do – hence the blog post rest.
Being back in England has been a special time.
Part of it is because I never thought I would have lived here again.
Part of it is because I have been able to catch up with old friends once more.
Part of it is because I love big cities and always wanted to live in London.
Part of it is because despite its bullshit, it’s still my home and I’ve loved being in a place where so much of it just felt natural.
And part of it is because of the new friends I have met along the way.
To think I didn’t know people like Tanter, Nils, the beautifully irresponsible – in the most responsible way – Mike and Sam, the entire planning gang at R/GA [though Lachlan did remind me when I started that we had once met in Australia … when he was a student, hahahaha], Michael Roberts, Ben Major, Tarik at Onroad, Sam Clohesy, Ian Preston, Trudie, the inspirational [whether he accepts that or not] Murray Calder, Keerti, Munraj, Larissa Vince – who is a better Nottingham Forest than I could ever be, John, Nana at POCC, Asheru, Louise Jack, Eduardo, Sara Tate, Holly Day, Ally and everyone at Brixton Finishing School, Dorcas, Abi, the incredible Kay Adekunle Rufai from the S-M-I-L-E-ing Boys project, Nick Hirst, Tom Roach and countless other people from work or – shock, horror – Twitter [including one of my ad-icons, Trevor Beattie] … is astounding.
And while I am thrilled to be going to New Zealand for our next adventure, leaving England is much harder than I thought it would.
Without doubt, a big part of that is because as much as I’ve been away, it still feels like home.
Not just because we bought our beautiful house here, but because my beloved Paul and Shelly are here.
And while the pandemic meant we didn’t see each other as much as we would have liked, it’s more than I’d had in quarter of a century and I will treasure that as much as I treasure the fact Paul and I are still as stupid together, as we were when we were kids.
England is where I was raised.
And while I have sold the family home to buy our new family home … it doesn’t take away from the fact, so many of the things that made me who I am, were made here.
Of course I wish my Mum and Dad were still alive.
How I would have loved to have made them happy to be ‘home again’.
How I would have loved to have spent so much time chatting and remembering together.
But maybe it they were still alive we wouldn’t have gone to NZ and so it appears they are still encouraging me to explore, even without them here anymore.
Though I would happily swap it all for another day together, even though I am also happy they have not had to endure the hardship that COVID has placed on the country. I can’t imagine what it would be like for them to have to deal with it and I have nothing but admiration for any person trying to manage/balance that situation with their own family.
But we’re off … and frankly, the idea of going to New Zealand feels like one of the greatest gift in the World.
That we will soon be in a country where WE CAN GO OUT TO DINNER IN A RESTAURANT seems almost impossible.
That we will soon be in a country where Otis CAN PLAY OUTSIDE WITH HIS [NEW] FRIENDS WHENEVER HE WANTS is a dream.
That we will soon be able to go visit Jill’s Mum IN A MATTER OF HOURS is madness, given it’s been 17 years since she could do that.
And that I get to do this while working at one of my favourite companies in the World – the brilliant Colenso – is, frankly, insane.
I’m so excited for the adventures we’ll have.
The experiences we will discover and learn from.
Not to mention the work I will able to be a part of creating.
That said, I cannot thank all the brilliant people who have made my return to England so special, enough.
I will miss so much about here, but the memories will also last me through till our return.
And we will be back.
Don’t know where. Don’t know when.
But – not wishing to make it sound like a threat – I know we’ll meet again, some sunny day.
Take care of yourselves. Thank you for everything.
See you on the other side. Literally and metaphorically.