There’s no such thing as an ending because they’re always beginnings. So say the wise and they do have a point, even when the referenced ending is actual death. It’s four weeks now since Bri died – on 18th February – and its been a strange hazy unending whirl of stuff and shit ever since. Seems a crazy idea that as soon as someone dies, the people closest to them have to organise what, up north, we’d call a bit of a do when everyone’s still deep in the throws of trying to fathom out what the chuff life even is, and the apparently stark finality of someone they’ve know really well and loved, simply ceasing to exist. If I was master of the universe I’d upgrade the whole death scenario with a huge database of lost consciousnesses where you could go to chat whenever you wanted. If existence had this facility,it would have made my life so much easier. My mum died when I was four and every time someone asks me that dinner party question – you know the one – who would you invite if you could have anyone from all time and space round for chippy tea (well I am from Bolton) – my first guest is always-always my mum. The others have changed over time, Jane Austen, the team that built Stonehenge, Ann Boleyn, the Virgin Mary, but being able to chat with my mum has always been first. Missing her over the years, the huge hollowness she left would have been filled with summat which would have helped had the consciousnesses library existed. Now I’d have to invite Bri too. As a passionate ex-Catholic he’d probs have a lot of questions to ask the VM.

Anyhoo, four weeks after his passing, we’ve had a funeral (non religious), half cleared the house (it is so so SO full I wonder if this will ever end), done the first batch of paperwork and started to feel the emptiness of the space Bri used to occupy both physically and inside our heads. It feels so strange and unfathomable to think he’s gone – like when you try to imagine the vast endlessness of the universe and can’t quite.

One thing that’s helped a lot as I’ve tried to process Bri’s passing, is co-judging the National Flash Fiction Day Micro comp. When I signed up to do this last year, I never imagined that I would be reading hundreds and hundreds of micros in the wake of Bri’s death. But it helped so much, as an escape and as a joy. Gratitude to everyone who entered. Reading your brilliant flashes was a tonic at a very tricky time. And so many congrats to the winners. Each and every story is a shining jewel of micro-fiction. Also, I was cheered to see some flash mates on the winners’ list. The whole comp is read blind so it was a lovely surprise to see a collection of flash buddies unmasked.

Anyhoo, suffice it to say that Bri’s passing is a huge new beginning for me because it means an end to my time as a carer. It leaves me free to come, go, travel and focus on projects and do a lot more stuff in general. His passing has also provided a salutary reminder to seize the day. I am sixty next year and did not begin my writing journey until I was fifty. In the last ten years I’ve started and finished an MA, written a memoir-in-flash which was published by Retreat West, written a novella-in-flash which won the Bath novella-in-flash comp in 2023, written a short story collection to be published in 2025 by the wonderful Northodox Press and won prizes and comps for flash and short stories hither and yon, all of which leads me to believe that, if I have another ten good years, I could write another five good(ish) books if I pull my finger out.

I am currently 30k words into a weird novel-length creation that I’m finding difficult to write because its a reimagined historical fiction/sci-fi mash up told in three timelines across two different multi verses – think Everything Everywhere all at Once, with a non-binary version of Margaret Thatcher and that-universe’s (female) iteration of Schrödinger saving their version of events from our universe’s, entangled dark energy. I know! It’s taking every bit of brain power I have to write it, but I feel sooooo driven to get it writ.

I’d also like to embark on other projects. I did some teaching in creative writing back in 2019 before I became a carer, at our local adult education centre. Sadly, now, all the arts, crafts and creativity courses have been scrapped in favour of workplace skills, so can’t go back there. I did in-person teaching because, living out here in the fens, my WiFi wasn’t good enough to teach online. Village connectivity was upgraded last year though, and meetings and readings I’ve done since have all been fine. This being the case I intend to put together a couple of on-line workshops and see how I get on, one’s that are focussed on metaphor and stories in which the protag stays unchanged, doesn’t go on a narrative journey and has no epiphany at all. Another thing I intend to start investigating is applying for residencies. I think I’ve probably missed most of this year’s application windows but no problem-o because that leaves me loads of time to get match fit for next year’s. First thing to do, it seems, is write a CV, a writer’s CV – which feels a bit daunting, but I reckon I could get one done in a couple of days hard work. If anyone reading this has done one I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Reet then. Though I said at the beginning of this, there’s no such thing as endings I was clearly wrong because every story has one and this blog is no exception. But it would be remiss of me to end here without saying goodbye to Bri. Bri was a very private person who didn’t really like people, who had a seriously troubled childhood that marked his whole life. He could rage and roar with the best of them. After contracting covid in January he went to hospital with breathing difficulties and stayed there for four weeks, getting iller and weaker. All this on top of already complex chronic health conditions made him certain he wanted to leave this world, but at home. It was not a quick or easy negation but he was ambulanced home on the Thursday with full palliative care set up, not to get better, but to die, which he did the following Monday, peacefully and in his sleep.

I read Mending Wall by Robert Frost at his funeral because Bri loved Robert frost, and it’s a poem so often mis-quoted, and a poem we, let’s call it, debated, a lot in second lockdown. We read it and many, many more poems over his final years, but we didn’t always come to the same conclusions as to meaning. I chose Mending Wall from the plethora of poems I could’ve chosen, because it was one of the few I could finish reading without choking up. When I was practising it in the days leading up to the funeral I’d channel how cross we’d get when we were arguing which kept my tears of grief at bay. I also tried After Apple Picking and practically everything by Siegfried Sassoon who he loved as much as Frost, but could never get to the end without weeping.

Anyway here he is in 2020 on his 81st birthday when he could still get out and about. We took him down the pub to celebrate. It was a happy, sunny, funny afternoon, four weeks before Roz’s terrible stroke which changed everything over night and was really, I think, the beginning of so many endings.