I have always been a daddys little girl (no matter what age) or even living on the other side of the world did not seperate our closeness! My father, mother & I would all speak very regularly on video call , social media, whats app etc & we were a very tight knit family of 3.
My darling dad was a perfectly healthy active early retiree at 62yrs old playing golf 3 times a week, going to the gym 5 days wk , walked the family dog twice a day and was a very active man always keeping busy with life and DYI projects etc
In Aug 2018 in Australia he was busy cleaning the leaves off the guttering of the family home when he slipped and fell 12 -14foot off the roof of our family home in Aus and broke his back in and neck in several places, pierced his lungs, broke ribs and gashed his leg with a 10inch deep cut from the tin roof when sliding off the roof and was paralysed completely in the fall. He was flown by helicopter from a country town to a major city hospital to intensive care and for back and neck surgery and was in & out of an induced coma and on life support due to the damage of his collapsed lungs for 4weeks.
I arrived about 5 days after his fall and he was in accute distress & spiking infections regularly and not able to breath long enough without the machine to be transported to theatre for a tracheostomy to help him improve. The day I arrived in hospital he had a heart attack but Drs were able to revive him… eventually after me being by his side for 3weeks alone without my mum (as she had pre existing health conditions and she suffered severe phobias of travelling & being in hospital even to be by dads side) it meant that I had to bear the weight of carrying this burden alone without her in person there seeing him in pain and distress deteriorating every day. The Drs took the decision to turn off life support as he was suffering greatly, This was incredibly difficult for me to deal with as my dad was my whole world but also because I was upset and angry that my mum couldn’t push past her personal fears/phobias and her own individual health concerns to be by his side 4hrs drive/train ride away when I’d travelled 23hrs by flight across 3 time zones to be by his side!!!
I also felt responsible for not being in Aus for him at the time of his accident or earlier before his major surgeries and then being placed in an induced coma…unable to speak, move or communicate with me when I did finally arrive back to Australia and went immediately to the hospital but am grateful that he saw me by his side for this time and could hear my voice and even though I said my goodbyes I never heard his voice or what he wanted to say…just the tears in his eyes and him blinking to me saying he could hear me…it was so heartbreaking & traumatising goodbye to the kindest most loved father, husband and friend to many!
I hit rockbottom after his passing… or so I thought until
my mother was then diagnosed with late stage 4 pancreatic & bowel cancer 11 and a half months after my fathers death (when i was already returned living in London again after her telling me to come back here and try to pick up the pieces of my business falling apart and to get back in the studio to work on my 1st album release which I was part way through) & I also had my own serious health issues with chronic pain and arthritis in my back and hip and had operations scheduled back in London).
My mum was in hospital for 1week having tests and examinations as they didn’t know what was wrong with her at 1st but she then kept the news hidden from me for 1 week before she told me what was wrong and how seriously sick she was and that she had cancer and was dying. She had told the Drs not to tell me for 1 whole week (when I was ringing her morning and night checking in for news) and she kept it hidden from me then told me in anger when i kept prodding her to share what was wrong with her… The Drs did not know how much time we had left whether it was a few days, a few weeks or maybe a few months… but after hearing she had cancer I took 4/5 days to pack up my apartment, inform all my students of my sudden situation that I had to leave the country and quickly find enouhh money through raising donations on a campaign and buy a ticket & move out of my room in a flatshare to put my things in storage!! I didn’t sleep for 3 days trying to get organised! But it turned out to be the worst decision of my life…EVER!!!
I thought I’d be back in Australia for at least a few months and have some time with my mum and hopefully have 1 last Christmas with her before she passed away… but she passed away after me travelling all the way back to Aus whilst I was waiting in the domestic airport for the last short 1.5hr flight to her country town (which was quicker than taking a 5hr train ride from Sydney!)
My arrival at the hospital was 2hrs too late to see her still alive to say any goodbyes or I love yous & I had to see my darling mother in the morge at the hospital after travelling 24hrs on a flight & a further 1.5hr flight to the country town where she was living and see her like that…which was so traumatic! Her sudden death was exactly 1year and 3 days after my fathers death…and I still can’t live with the decisions I made.
Still to this day I can never forgive myself for leaving her on her own after 2 months of staying with her after my dad passing and that I wasn’t there in time to be with her by her in her last dying weeks, days and minutes. (I wrestled with staying in Australia past 2months of being with my mum or coming back to the life I had developed in London with 30 weekly students who were waiting for me & my gigs to start kicking off as an emerging original songwriter artist. My mum encouraged me to return and assured me she’d be ok being that she was a strong, independant private woman that grieved very differently from me…i believed she wanted her space away from me to process the loss of her partner of 42yrs (and also her brother living in New Zealand only 1 month prior aswell!)
Being an only child I’ve then had to cope with the aftermath of the physical clean up that followed for 4months there having to then return to my life & business & clients that I was losing in my business being out of country for 4 months to then return to London and have the world go into covid pandemic only 6weeks later and endure lockdown life in severe depression, loss, loneliness, anxiety and already feeling abondoned and alone to then lose even more financially with clients not wanting to convert from in person business to online teaching and for my business & performance work as a musician/songwriter (the 1 huge passion I have) to go down the drain then go into further lockdown for the next 12months & not be able to return easily home to Australia to finish the after math of my parents responsibilities etc.
On top of this I got covid myself only 8weeks after returning to London and I was incredibly ill for 6weeks… for a few days there I felt so touch and go that I thought Id be joining my parents in heavenly paradise…where I wish I could have been cause living now on this earth is so incredibly difficult every single day without them…my heart & life feels shattered in a million pieces, I lost my faith for most of this whole time as I doubted God and how he could allow this to happen to them, to me… and I don’t know how my heart, mind, life can ever be repaired or whole ever again. It feels like time has stood still since their passing and I’ve lost all sense of motivation, passion and energy for life…my passions have fallen aside even my writing and music because dealing with the loss daily is too much tor me to bear even at times I’ve become a shell of who I once was and struggle to stay motivated to keep living!!!
How do I keep going on when all I want to do at times is just self harm & often end the heartwrenching pain, loss and abondonment in my life cause it’s so miserable without them everyday…
Please help give any encouragement, tips on survival etc etc. Thanks so much for listening to my story… great love to you all to have read thus far xx