Look Down, Smile and Be Proud

I’m sorry guys I’m lowering the mood a little.

Everyone has a secret hobby that they are too embarrassed to tell anyone about, well mine is writing poems. I will not lie and say yes I’m so amazing at writing them; the truth is I am not too good at but hopefully I’ll get better with time and practice.

It is also no lie that I bloody love English.

The first proper death I experienced was when my Grandma died. This hit me hard. It hadn’t helped that the night I found out I had been enjoying myself drinking; this made me feel so incredibly guilty, I know that it is okay to have a little drink with your friends and have a good time but I just felt that I had let her down. It also did not help that I was a little drunk so snuck upstairs and got in bed. I had been in bed when I heard my mum and aunty talking and this was the moment that I found out that she had died. The moment you don’t know what to do, if to say something or if to be a wimp and pretend you hadn’t heard it. I did the second one. I wanted to pretend it was a dream. It wasn’t until my mum came in my room and told me that it really hit me. I had only spoken to her a few days ago, the conversation was so short, there was so many things I wished I would have said.

Something I want to make every member of my family is pride.

I wanted to do something to make her proud, even if I didn’t make it to University I wanted to dedicate something that meant a lot. So I went to my English teacher and asked her how to start writing a poem; she told me that ‘if you feel that deeply about it, it will come to you’. These words will stay with me forever.

I started writing

Speechless.

Not knowing, maybe, the worst thing in the world. The not knowing what a funeral is, the abstract noun, un definable. In my eyes a way of celebrating life, in others well a way of saying goodbye. Really is it goodbye? Or is it hello?

But how can such a word be sistered with love, hate, jealousy? Words which hold such power. This weak word seldomly used. Thinking deeply I'm wrong, the amount of raw emotion that goes into the single word is too extreme to bare to talk about in day to day lives. Like expletives!

The extreme contrast between celebrating and black. Does that make my opinion of it wrong? Who is to tell me that I am wrong, is everyone wrong or is everyone right and funeral really is un definable?

How can you really let go without celebrating? Celebrating doesn't mean forgetting, far from the opposite. To celebrate you remember, you remember the good times. You remember the bad times. You even remember what you thought you had forgotten.

Although it is one thing writing a poem it is another telling people about it let alone asking to read it at the funeral. As I am such a wimp I hid it from everyone for months and months. This is something I think I regret the most.

Everyone deals with things in different ways, if that be writing your thoughts and feelings down or if that be going and getting drunk, all you can ask for is that you have good enough friends that will look after you, be there for you and that you can talk to about anything.

I’d like to think that if anyone ever needed me I would be able to listen and give the best advice I can.

And Grandma, I hope you are looking down on me and smiling.