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Malone starts grieving, but doesn’t know where to start, or who to grieve for

It was my dad’s funeral a few days ago. I feel low. I miss my dad. I also miss my boyfriend. I want to snuggle up to him but I can’t because I dumped him the day before my dad died. Not great timing.

“I spent ten months while he was dying really grieving, because that’s when I lost him, when he became bed-ridden and incapable”

It feels like I always have to go through things alone. I live on my own; I had a child on my own, (not literally, I wasn’t at the side of the motorway waiting for an ambulance – hey, things weren’t that bad). Now I have to deal with grieving on my own. I want a hug. I can’t have one. I wonder if I want a hug from anyone else?

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A weekend with mum means being locked out in the rain

The Small Daughter and I recently spent a rather torturous weekend at my mothers in Stoke-on-Trent. Well, I say a weekend, but we arrived at 7.30pm on the Saturday evening and left at Monday lunchtime so technically, we were there for just one day. I can assure you that it was the longest day of my life and it will be a very long time before I can muster up the courage to go back again, in spite of the fact that The Small Daughter thoroughly enjoyed herself in that 7-year-old way of hers…

“I was dragged to ‘sort out’ the DVD player which, according to my mother, needed a ‘stunt lead’“

Whenever I visit my mother, I always set out with the best of intentions and sally forth behind an impenetrable aegis of grown-upness. Read the rest of this article »