Good parts, bad parts. Or stoicism and loss.

I’m back in the missing stage, today. Yesterday I was in the stripped of my skin stage. The day before I was in the baffled, hit a brick wall stage. Today, all I can think is: I miss you. Oh, I miss you.

It was every day, you see. I saw my mother ever day. That’s part of the problem. It’s the good part and the bad part. The good part is that we saw each other each morning as I went in to make the breakfast. On Saturdays, I collected her Racing Post from the shop and delivered it and stayed to talk about the day’s runners. (‘Oh, Ruby,’ she would say, a wistful, maternal note in her voice, as if these were not tough men at the top of their profession. ‘Oh, AP.’) On Sundays, we all had a lie-in and I would just get a telephone call if Hurricane Fly or Annie Power had done something marvellous at Punchestown.

That’s all good part. The bad part is that this means there is a vast daily rupture; a daily absence; a daily reminder. The lovely Stepfather and I eat our eggs and doggedly talk of the news. We speak of Paris and fundamentalism and tolerance and intolerance and the lessons of history, and we pretend that there is not a great, gaping hole in the house. We do a lot of speaking. The one thing we do not say is: ‘Oh, how we miss her.’

I write about my mother and father as if they were paragons. They were not. They were as complex and flawed as all human beings. They were both dazzlingly brilliant parents and occasionally absolutely useless parents. There were times when they drove me mad, and times when I drove them mad, mostly through my shocking stubbornness.

But the interesting thing about death (at least, it is fascinating to me) is that almost at the very moment of passing from the mortal realm to whatever lies beyond all those flaws and frailties and maddening bits are burnt away, as if in some grand Phoenix-like fire. And from the ashes rise all the glorious parts, the good bits, the moments of glad grace, the idiosyncratic talents, the laughter, the kindness, the sheer otherness. (They were both quite unusual, in their different ways. I only realise this when I tell someone a story which I think perfectly normal, and see the arched eyebrows and look of astonishment.)

I like that part. I like remembering them in their glory days; I carry their very finest selves with me, locked into my heart.

I got used to being without my father. It took about two years. I still think of him every day and sometimes miss him so much that I can’t breathe, but mostly I think of him with a great, spreading fondness and keen pride and a lot of wry laughter. I’ll get used to this too, although I think it’s going to be harder and longer, because of the every day aspect. A huge chunk of the cliff of my life has crumbled into the sea and I have to make a new path.

The Stepfather, who is a gentleman of the old school, as my brother said at the wake ‘the greatest gentleman in Britain’, said a very kind thing yesterday. We were talking about stoicism. Mum had it; he has it; it is one of the virtues that is still stitched into the culture of this dear old island race. I admire it more and more as I get older. ‘I think you are very stoical,’ he said, nodding his wise head.

I felt as if someone had given me a medal. When I was young, I wanted to be charming, brilliant, eccentric, talented. I wanted glittering prizes. Now, I want to be steady and stoical.

It doesn’t mean that emotions are not felt, or honoured, but that one does not make a three act opera of them. One may stare them in the whites of their eyes, but not wallow in them. It’s a very, very fine line to walk. Sometimes I feel that even writing this is a bit of a tap dance. Look at me, with my grieving. On the other hand, sorrow must have words, and this is as good a place to put them as any. I put them here, and people may read them and understand them, or they may pass on, and I don’t have to bore poor real-world humans and frighten the horses in the street.

Also, I want to remember. When the missing stage has faded, shrunk back to its proper place, become gentled with time, I shall take down this book and slowly read. I find it curiously soothing to know that it shall all be there, waiting for me.

 

Today’s pictures:

The remarkable thing is that the one place I don’t have to be at all stoical is down in my enchanted field. The mares are so funny, affectionate, clever and beautiful, so authentic and present and real, so honest and absolutely themselves, that merely standing next to them banishes all sorrow. It is really quite odd. It’s my daily rest, my morning holiday from wearing emotion. I can’t quite work out what it is - their sheer loveliness, the purity of them, their own complete lack of sentimentality, their faintly flinty life must go on aspect. Or perhaps all of those things. Whatever it is, I am more grateful for it than I can say.

It’s gloomy today, so these pictures are from a couple of days ago, when it was sunny:

A radical thought.

This morning, in the bath, I had a radical thought. What if I was happy, for my mother’s sake?

Here is the ludicrous thing about death. A person you love dies. You cry a lot. You feel wretched. Your throat aches with unexpressed words, trapped memories, tangled regrets. You wash your hair twice because you have no idea whether you did it the first time. You have a bit of trouble behaving in a rational manner in the Co-op. You have no idea what you are supposed to do next. You go to bed at seven because you are so tired you don’t know what your name is. You keep getting wild flashes of the person, some happy, some sad, all lacerating. You have to tell people, which can go either way. You are out of step with the rest of the world, even though, paradoxically, death is the one certainty which knits all human hearts together. You make stupid amounts of soup, so that your kitchen becomes like some kind of industrial production line. You are a little lost, entirely bashed, and very, very sad.

No person you have ever loved would want you to feel any of those feelings.

I don’t have a heaven or an afterlife, although I am occasionally tempted by reincarnation and I do make jokes about the ghostly sound of my father’s laughter from the Great Betting Shop in the Sky. But if there existed a cloud on which my mother was now sitting, she would not be looking down and shouting, ‘Oh, bloody hell, go on, more weeping.’ I really don’t think that is what she would be saying.

I talk a lot about grief marking the space left behind, honouring the dead, but now I’m not sure. I know it has to be done, and you have to get the damn thing out or it will twist itself up and trap you into fatal tendencies like not eating or not sleeping or shouting at random people.

But what is it for?

Not the dead person, who wants only your well-being. I adore my nieces. If I said one word which caused them dismay, let alone pain, I would castigate myself for days. If, when I died, they felt horrid grief and if I had any consciousness left to see that horrid grief, I would be furious with myself. (Perhaps no cloud must be a good thing then, so the poor Dear Departeds, many of whom were rather jolly themselves and loved a party, don’t have to look down and see the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.)

None of it makes any sense. Humans – poets and novelists and playwrights and philosophers and shrinks – try to make sense of it because it so universally is. Even the most devout, who really do believe in choirs of angels and a Better Place, cry like anything when the beloveds go.

If I were the dead, I should be so cross. Have a lovely time, I should be bawling, from my wobbly cloud; have some gin, ride a horse, have a huge punt on the 3.30 at Fakenham; go dancing with your best friend; walk in the rain; read some Scott Fitzgerald; eat a peach. Make more soup if you must, I would be yelling, but perhaps some without tears in it.

So, here is my radical thought. Today, I’m going to be happy for my mum.

It won’t work all day, because I’m not buggery Superwoman, but I’m going to give it a shot. I’m going to dig out the little happy moments like a truffle hound. Instead of looking at Stanley and thinking, miserably, Oh, you loved her so much, I shall think of how happy his eager face is and how he is living entirely in the moment. It is a very good moment, because some of the rats have come back to the feed shed, so he is once more in his Steve McQueen Great Escape incarnation, and nothing makes him happier than tunnelling under the feed shed.

He did lay by her side every morning for the last few weeks, as if he knew she was failing, but that does not have to be a sad thing but a happy thing, a really wonderful thing which should make me smile with delight at his fine, devoted, doggy heart.

I’m going to ride my horse for her, because she was proud of what I did with that mare. I’m not going to look at the new mare as I did last night and say Oh, how I wish she had met you. I’m going to laugh like a drain at the thought that although my mother adored thoroughbreds, she did not in fact want me to get another one. (‘What is this Scout?’ Said in a Lady Bracknell voice.) She really longed for me to buy a little Welsh pony for the great-nephews and great-nieces. ‘A little Section A. Just imagine.’

I’m going to write the most absurd gratitude list in the world. (In this spirit, I felt grateful this morning as I came down from my bedroom, because there were actual stairs, to get me from one floor to the other. There are people who don’t have stairs.) For one day, I’m going to peer through the literal and metaphorical dreich and see the damn beauty. I’m going to do it for Mum.

 

Today’s pictures:

Just one. This is the one I’m carrying in my head. My mother liked small, elegant, polite dogs. She had unbelievably chic whippets when I was a child, as dapper and dashing as old school Russian aristocrats. Stanley is the most muttish of lurchers – to go with his greyhound half there is anything from Staffie to Lab to Boxer to Australian Cattle Dog. He is antic, unpredictable and very busy. He likes leaping about. He can open every single door on the compound. (He once opened my car door when it was locked, and also amuses himself by turning on the hazard lights and switching on Radio Four when he is bored.) You would think my mother would be horrified. But they fell in love with each other on sight, and nothing after that could come between them.

That is a happy thought. This is a happy dog.

Starting again

Oh, bugger. Now I have to learn to do this all over again.

It all comes back to me, after eighteen months. I thought I had remembered it all but it turns out I’ve forgotten quite a lot. First of all, there is the thing of having to keep moving. That’s back. In the fine morning light, I walk and walk round the block, under the old oaks, past the amber beeches, by the young chestnuts. Inadvertent noises come out of my mouth, like the creaking groans of 19^th century schooners. (It’s hard to describe, but there is something of timber about the noises.) Sometimes I say, very loudly: oh no; or, FUCK; or, bugger, bugger, bugger. I can’t quite remember if cursing was a thing before. It is now.

Then, the crying. I am very hard line about crying. I think it must be done. Mostly, I try to do it privately, where I won’t frighten the horses. (Actual, and metaphorical.) It has to come out, or it gets all twisted up inside and that is when the good grief turns into mulish depression or stuck fury or a black cloud of unknown mood which will never shift. Just at the moment, it bursts out of its own accord, wherever I happen to be. (I think: oh, no, I forgot this, the fact that I won’t be able to go to the Co-op for three days. I remember that, after my dad. I think: I hope I have enough canned goods for the duration.)

There is a part of me, when the tears come, that says stop. They are too mighty; they shall shake my feeble frame apart. It’s a sort of terror, probably from Britishness, from upbringing, from school even; the fear of making fuss, making a scene, being silly. No, no, I have to tell myself, let them out. Out they come, messy, red, raw, painful. They make an absurd noise. Oh, my dog, I think; my dog.

I heard her this morning. I actually turned my head in the kitchen because I heard the click of her paws on the floor. There is a part of my brain that cannot quite register that she does not exist. I try to rationalise this. We were together for ten years, every day. She lay beside me as I worked, slept with me at night, woke me in the morning. Because I work from home, and rarely travel, there were very few days or hours when we were separated. She even used to come and hang her head over the side of the bath when I was washing my hair. We were inseparable. That’s a lot of companionship; of course there is a section of my cerebellum which cannot compute.

I went up at nine to the horses. Red’s View was pale blue and lucid, the snow white and stately on the top of the mountain, the air still as a church. I stood with the mare and looked out at it, and felt all right. ‘Oh,’ I said, out loud. ‘I see. I feel better here.’ This place, this horse, this would be my magic bullet. For a moment, I was restored. Then the wave of missing hit, and I was swamped again.

If I don’t like to cry in front of people, I really don’t like to cry in front of my mare. This is not her trouble; my job is to be good and strong for her, so she can feel safe and happy. But this morning there was nothing for it; out trooped the childish wails. We were in the field without a halter; I thought she would probably wander off, and I could not blame her. Instead, she went very calm and still. She put her head over my shoulder, and rested it there. I could feel it growing heavy as she went into a little doze. It’s a feeling I can’t quite describe, when she does that. It’s profound and elemental.

Horses are quite steely creatures, compared to dogs. Their survival instincts are much more vivid and recent; their ancestral past lives in them in a way that dogs’ does not. They don’t hurl love around like canines do; I’m not sure that word even means anything when it comes to horses. The Pidge would literally jump for joy when I came through the door; Red is mildly pleased to see me, mostly because I represent getting her needs met, which is her ancient evolutionary priority. So I don’t know what that thing in the field was, but it felt like something. I’m not going to give it a flaky human name. I’m not going to sentimentalise it with anthropomorphism. It touched my heart, is all.

I think I had grown a little cocky; the wings of hubris had begun to flap. I think I thought because I went through all this last year, I should know what to do. I even said to The Sister yesterday: ‘we grieved Dad well.’ We did, actually. But what I remember now is that it was not easy, or seamless, or ordered, or neat. It was all a bit of a mess. Loss is a bit of a mess. I shall have to learn it all again.

Last year, on the night of my father’s funeral, my other dog, my glorious old Duchess, died. I went the next day, blindly, into a bookshop. After a while, I worked out what I was looking for. It was a book called: What to do when your dad and your dog dies. That book does not exist. I remember thinking: I shall have to write the damn thing myself. I even pitched it to the agent, who was cautious but kind. I wish I had written it, so I could take it down and slowly read, so it would tell me what to do.

Instead, it’s starting again. I have to learn it all over again, from scratch. My immediate plan: I’m going to eat chicken soup and watch the racing. One of my favourite old horses, Midnight Chase, is running at Wetherby, and I shall give him a bloody good shout, even though he is probably carrying too much weight to win. But he has an indomitable heart, and that may see him through.

It will be the first time I shall have watched the racing without the Pidge jumping up and down on all fours, like a cartoon dog, barking her head off, which is always what she did when I started yelling ‘Come on, my son.’ On that glorious day when Kauto Star won his second Gold Cup, the two of us were making such a noise that my neighbour actually burst in the door, thinking there was some kind of home invasion.

I think: I am going to need an indomitable heart of my own. Those sinews are going to require a bit of stiffening. I eye my new bottle of iron tonic. I suspect it may take a bit more than iron tonic, but it’s a start.

 

Today’s pictures:

Morning walk:

This one is particularly strange with no lovely black silhouette in it:

Red’s View:

Myfanwy the Pony:

Red the Mare:

One of the Dear Readers said she hoped I would go on putting up pictures of The Pigeon, and so I shall. I cannot deprive the blog of this much beauty:

Two views of the hill:

The kindness continues. A cousin writes from Long Island; the old friend with the white roses sends me a message of love, which is the first thing I read when I wake up. My Twitterstream is filled with sweetness. I actually have angst because I cannot reply to everyone; too many for me to keep track of. This has never happened before, and is testament to the power of that good dog. I send out general thanks and hope that people see them.

And here, the Dear Readers rise up in a perfect, gleaming regiment of goodness and sense and generosity and understanding. I am touched beyond measure. Thank you.

Work, horses, kindness, news. Or, in which I share with the group.

After a very rocky start, and a naughty break to watch the 3.15 at Yarmouth, I wrote 1177 words of secret project. I also appear to have started a new secret project, which is so clandestine that no other human knows of it, and there was 1060 words of that as well.

After yesterday’s theatrics, the mare and I went for a nice gentle schooling ride. Nothing scared her today. I track her changing moods with utter fascination. There are days when her blood is up, all that ancient pedigree singing in her like starlings; there are other days when you would swear she was part-mule, all dozy and with faint moments of stubbornness.

Today, there was trace of mule, until I would have none of it, and we finally got to the lovely collected canter I wanted, after a bit of wrangling and negotiation. She quite likes a wrangle. Some days, she is docile as a dog, longing to do exactly what I ask; on others she lays down little teases and tests for me.

This is partly, I think, because of her character, which is intelligent, determined and sensitive. But it is mostly, as all things are with horses, to do with me. If I am calm and happy and filled with resolution, she is too. She does not like it when I am melancholy or uncertain or tense. I imagine all these emotions stream out of me and communicate themselves to her equine intuition and unsettle her. I think: you can’t really indulge yourself with horses. You can’t just fall into your own rotten day, and pick at old sorrows and new hurts. You have to be bright and bonny and blithe. I think it’s probably not a bad psychological exercise.

Out in the world, the government is bombing its citizens in Syria, and two policewomen were shot in Manchester, and the ripples from Mitt Romney’s comment that 47% of the American people were victims, dependent on the government, refusing to take responsibility for their own lives, continues to roil the election campaign. With all this going on, the most read story on the Guardian website today is a review of the new iPhone. I did not even know there was a new iPhone, but apparently it’s top news.

In my own small world, someone did something so kind and generous and thoughtful last night that I was lost for words. It was one of those random acts of kindness that are quite small, but have a profound impact. My equilibrium steadied and my heart expanded. Humans are sometimes very marvellous indeed.

As I drove back from evening stables last night, with the wild low sun dancing over the blue of the hills, I suddenly realised what all this was; this equine obsession, this thin skin, this paradoxical combination of deep joy and emotional fragility. It’s such a cliché I can hardly even type it, although I suppose it is slightly less of a cliché than what I had originally diagnosed, which was straightforward mid-life crisis. The reason I am doing all this, and the reason I write about it so much, and the reason I become so quickly heartsick in the face of set-back, is that it is all to do with my father.

Oh, God, BATHOS ALERT. Move quietly to the exits as the klaxons wail. Also, I tell myself, really quite crossly, could you not just be a bit more original? And, and, it’s not as if everyone doesn’t have parents who die.

But there it is. I must have reasons for things, and now I have my reason. All this watching of racing, and working with Red, and naughty betting, is not just a way of keeping a connection with my dad, because he was a racing man, and a Thoroughbred man, and a riding man, but also (I am cringing as I write this) to make him proud.

I did a job he did not understand; he was not a literary fellow. He would pat my hand very vaguely when the subject of my books came up. But if he could have seen me this afternoon, working out whether to go for the in-form Mark Johnston yard or the slightly better rated Michael Stoute runner, he would have been fascinated. He would have liked to have seen me wrangle with my determined mare. And I am really quite pissed off at him that he went and died before he could.

So that’s that, and I shall not speak of it again. I really don’t know why I tell you all this, but then, I think the only point of a personal blog is authenticity. And what I really like is when the Dear Readers say, oh yes, I’ve had that exact thing too, and you can’t get that unless you tell the truth.

 

That’s another 800 words to add to the tally, so my head is about to explode. Brain says: can’t do pictures this evening. You just get these two lovely faces on which to rest your tired eyes:

And Red’s View, because there must always be a view:

Sunday

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

It is very cold in Scotland and the sun is quite gone by 3.15pm, but our hearts are warm because the pandas arrived at Edinburgh Zoo. People stood out in the streets to see them, bagpipes were played, humans dressed up in panda suits, the newsreader on the BBC kept getting the giggles, and Twitter went nuts. It was very funny and sweet. There was rather a horrible shock when News 24 reverted to its usual diet of cuts, unions, Eurozone smash, and other animals. 'Bring back the pandas,' I wailed.

Then I looked at The Pigeon and thought she looked a bit like a panda herself, and felt better.

Here are some of the things I missed:

The Pidge is very pleased to be back. She loves it at the Cousin's house; there is a beautiful valley to walk through, two younger dogs who rather worship the old lady, and the children, who adore her, and hug and stroke her all day long. But there is no place like home. Perhaps it's all the familiar smells or something, the ones she grew up with, but she is bounding about like a puppy.

She celebrated re-entry by demolishing a most satisfying stick:

Yeah, stick-work. How about you?

I think I see another one over there:

Then she played around a bit with a fake mouse I'd given her. I'm not much for toys for dogs. We usually just make do with old bits of wood and an ancient tennis ball. But she does seem to like tormenting this poor little critter.

Whilst sticking her bottom in the air, for some reason:

And, the hill, from a wider angle than usual, to show her in all her glory:

Very Scottish, that. Low white sky, dour, serious colours. Some days that thick Scottish sun comes out, and the whole thing gleams and glows. On others, it's lovely and understated, like this.

I missed my dad last night, like a blow to the heart. No reason. I suddenly, terribly, stupidly, wanted him back. The missing, I have discovered, does not hurt less, as time goes by. It's just the spaces in between grow stronger and wider. I missed my Duchess too. She was such a fine dog, and I don't know if I'll ever know another like her.

But I have The Pigeon, and she is happy as a nut.