Angel Standing By. 💗

I gaze outside my window
And wish upon a star.
I open up my heart
And let my thoughts drift afar.
A tear rolls down my cheek
As I reminisce the past.
You hardly got to live.
Your life went by so fast.

And all because someone else
Made a dumb mistake.
I don’t understand why it was
Your life he had to take.

But now there’s no way I can bring you back
No matter how hard I try.
Because now you’re up in heaven
As my angel standing by.
(Karen Ashley Murray)

I’ve been thinking about grief a lot lately especially with the anniversary of my mum’s best friend yesterday.
He wasn’t just my mum’s life long best friend but he was a father figure to me.
As a young child I prayed that he was my dad. He treated me as I was his daughter and I worshiped the ground he walked on.
We had this special bond, a bond that only death could take away from us.
My mum had the same bond and even all these years later I can see her heart-break all over again as she remembers the extremely cruel way he died.
I have hardly ever spoken to anyone about the man who loved me as his own, who called me princess, who would have moved mountains for me.
I don’t think I even ever told Ross how much he warmed my life and how devastated I was when after months of suffering and pain he finally draw his last breath.
I had only ever seen one person die before, well I found the old gent dead on the toilet. 🚽
This though was a total different kettle of fish.
I loved him, in my eyes he was my father, the father I longed for, my friend and in ways my hero.

Twenty years on, I still grieve for him, I miss him desperately and I would cut off my right arm just to see his smile again, to hear his laugh and to try to understand his very dry sensed humour which I never fully understood as a child, now I roar as we reminisce his jokes.
What I would give to spend my summers in his swimming pool or to run over the sand dunes, desperately trying to beat him to the top.
For him to take me shopping for all the latest music 🎧.
I’ll never forget that huge tape shop he would take me to and I could pick what ever I fancied, it was a music crazy teenagers haven.
When summer would end and I had to fly home, with the most incredible sun tan from 6 weeks of pure relaxation and fun, I would beg my mum to marry him so everyday would be to me the perfect childhood.
When we walked through our front door, there would always be a parcel waiting for us, a box full of pirate vhs tapes. All the latest movies that were months away from being released. Jane and I would run to my room and snuggle up under the duvet and watch movie after movie, roaring with laughter ever time a head would pop up on the screen or a cough, sneeze or scream would over power the buzz of the muttered voices.
We didn’t care how bad quality they were, they were truly awful, all that mattered was they were a gift from my wannabe dad.

Grief and grieving doesn’t have a time line, you just can’t wake up and not feel the pain anymore, it never goes, somehow though you manage to keep living with the pain etched deeply into your heart, soul and memories.
I’ve now learnt how to look back and smile through the tears, I’ve learn to treasure the memories and for my wannabe dad to live on through them. I will never forget him, I will always be grateful to him for giving me my happiness childhood memories, for giving me a carefree summers, but most of all for giving me a glimmer of what father and daughters relationships can and should be like.
Sleep peacefully my angel standing by.