The scribblings of a widower in his sixties who has discovered the therapy of the written word. Join me on my journey from grief to satisfaction and how I eventually got there.
About me
I am a sixty-five-year-old widower, (In 2023). I discovered writing to cope with the grief of losing my wife of thirty-five years to cancer. I began by writing my first short story, The Slow Cooker (Link to the story here).https://scatterbrianblogs.com/the-slow-cooker/
This was followed by a story about each of the five stages of grief. Here I am, over one hundred and fifty stories later and four novels in progress.
Follow me on my journey, whether you’re a fellow sufferer or just keen on a story.
READ MY NOVELLA; THE PAINTING, FREE!
Read how a young Scotsman falls in love with a woman in his dreams, to discover that she exists when he meets an old Egyptian painter. Read about how their meeting saves the world from nuclear war.
Today’s Story
Long COVID:
Memories come flooding back of those dark days of 19th – 29th April 2020. The period when I had my personal battle with the little spikey guy who was to become synonymous with that annus horribilis.
As I lie here at 4am feeling like someone nicked my daily bottle of Methadone, joints screaming, head thumping, stomach churning, mouth like the inside of Thomas the Tank Engine’s firebox, I wonder if it will ever end.
End for me and this huge lump of rock floating in space currently at the mercy of something so small, you could fit nine billion on the head of a pin.
Memories of the morning of April 30th when I could feel my legs again, was no longer swimming in my own sweat and could make a fist again instead of looking like I’d just been caught grabbing a stranger’s breast. Short lived euphoria before the visit of Spike’s cousin. The invisible one who lives inside me, like a parasite, reminds me at 2pm every day that, “if you don’t have your nap now, there’ll be consequences.” The one that stays hidden until, like tonight, he does an impression of his alter ego, albeit for a couple of hours. Then he’ll slip away back into his hiding place leaving me washed up like a Dr Pepper bottle thrown from a North Sea ferry.
My imperceptible companion who constantly reminds me that I was one of the lucky survivors. One of those who can laugh inwardly at the fake news about it not existing or the many half-cock cures, including Trump’s “bottle of bleach.”
I sigh at the “it’ll never happen to me,” people who crammed the pubs and bars in the summer like it was a replay of D-Day.
He’s going now, leaving me with the gift of another sleepless night, a bigger reason to nap this afternoon after I’ve visited seventeen care homes filled with folks who haven’t seen their loved ones for seven months. Look on the bright side, Brian, the vaccine is on its way.
Soon we’ll forget it ever happened and they can go on raping the planet again and complaining about the traffic and the price of petrol.
All, of course, except we who harbour a little reminder of the curse of 2020 and the grieving relatives of the sixty thousand.
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Read my other stories from past days.