Sunday 15th August 2010

When the Vet informed me that Jemima had terminal lymphoma and it was only a matter of time before the end I set about planning revisiting old haunts. Ultimately I was only able to take her back to Epsom Downs and Redhouse Woods on one occasion each but amongst the list was a return to the New Forest – to the place where she discovered the joy of water. It was only in the weeks after January 29th 2010 that I actually began looking for the location of the New Forest walk and I suppose that given my memory of the place it would of course be an easy place to find. Late one evening I loaded up Google Maps and a Yahoo search window on my PC. I initially began my search by scanning around the New Forest on satellite view looking for locations that had a main road running east to west with a car park set off the road to the north along a track. Then directly north of the car park would be an open grassy area on the side of a gently sloping valley and at the bottom would be either a small narrow raised hill or possibly a disused railway embankment. A short way beyond this would be some woods. After a short look around I identified a couple of possible grassy areas north of a road but then took to searching Yahoo for disused railway embankment. I found what I wanted pretty quickly – that there was an old disused railway running westwards out from Brockenhurst. I pulled this up on Google Maps and scanned along what looked like the route of the old disused railway. I soon came across an area around Longslade Bottom that seemed to fit the bill perfectly. On various occasions after this discovery I would run the same investigation process again and each time I came upon the same location and I was pretty sure I had found it. Then somewhere along the way we booked a camping holiday to Sandy Balls near Fordingbridge in the New Forest during August.

And so it was that on Sunday 15th August 2010 that I found myself driving to Longslade Bottom with the family. I felt a little like a war veteran returning to the scenes of battle many years after the war had ended. I was a little nervous and wondered how it would affect me. We drove towards Lyndhurst and met the usual queue but persevering we made it through. I turned off along what I thought was the right road but before long realised I gone the wrong way. Strange as it was however I soon found that I was driving along a road I had seen before. We carried on for a while but seemed to be going the wrong way. We worked out where we were after another wrong turn however and soon found ourselves heading what felt like the same route as I had been along many years before. We found Longslade Bottom car park and drove in but it wasn’t the right place so we turned around and headed out back to the main road and carried on. After a left turn up around an incline the heathland open out and shortly after we found Longslade View car park. This felt right to me and as we trundled along the track towards the car park I was a little emotional. Everything was in the right place although it did not look exactly the same – I had considered this might be the case and expected it. The trees had grown and the heather in the valley was more numerous than my memory. It was a sunny day and the family gradually made its way down the slopes, Blackberry picking, while I thought about my old girl and the way she had careered about this place roughly 13 years before. I took in the sights, breathed the air and tried to feel the familiarity that helps keep Jemimas memory alive in my mind. We eventually reached the gap in the disused railway embankment and passed underneath the wooden bridge above to the other side. The line of trees that had been the other side of the embankment had grown a lot in 13 years, the ferns were very well grown and I could not really make out where the ditch that Jemima had fallen into had been. I began to question my memory and searched the area – I found a shallow ditch that was dry but it was in the wrong place. It all felt right though. The emotion began to overtake me as I walked around the area and in the few moments that I was alone the sadness of the loss of my girl held me in its sway. “Daddy Daddy come back” my other little girl had found me. I went over to her and picked her up and she gave me a big hug. I turned around and walked back to where I had been standing and searched through the ferns and undergrowth some more to find evidence of the ditch carrying my daughter. It was fitting in a way that in the moment that I felt most alone my baby girl, whom had been named Daisy Jemima Marie, would find me and give me comfort. I eventually put her down and she carried on with the rest of the family towards the small pool that straddled the path a little way up towards the woods. I again stood alone and soaked in as much atmosphere of the place as I could given the short time that I had. If I had been truly alone I would have perhaps spent an hour or so sitting there but such is the need of small children I decided within a few minutes that I should rejoin everybody. I looked up and to my great sadness I saw that the family was watching a black labrador that was having sticks thrown into the pool for him. For a moment, just a moment, I imagined that it was Jemima. I was far enough away that my perception was not sharp enough at the distance to allow me to see the differences in stature and shape. I could still feel the divide that death brings however and I had to stop myself from continuing the fantasy for too long. This was after all a family day out as well as a pilgrimage for me and it would not have done for the father to be overly detached and emotionally distant. I found myself boxing off the grief in my mind the way that I had become very good at over the years as I returned to the fold. It was still difficult though and I wanted so much for one of the various Black Labradors that came our way to be my girl.

After a few minutes of hanging around the pool I found my wife undressing the twins and our one year old so the could paddle. The fun they had in that water! Various Labradors came and went and the kids enjoyed being with them in the water. Before too long however I noticed that two long horned cows that had been hanging around a little way off in the marshland were now in the path that we had walked in on. The reason I noticed them was because one of them was making angry noises and heading our way with a middle aged Golden Retriever also heading our way in front of the cow. I was a little perturbed and decided we ought to move so with some haste the paddling session was ended, shoes were put on, clothes collected and we headed off away from the cows towards the woods.

The woods were of course part of the planned walk that I had in my head. The same woods where Jemima had been sick in and bizarrely enough I found myself looking for the remains of the blue handlebar foam that she had regurgitated. I felt a little silly but I surmised that the blue foam in question was probably not biodegradable and could still be seen if it was on the surface of the path where it had been ‘left’. We walked onwards into the woods and I searched up to and beyond the probable turning point of the original walk thirteen years prior but with no success. I decided that looking for the remains of Dog vomit could be construed as a little strange – perhaps it is. It wasn’t ever a real goal of the walk though – just something I was curious about.

There is little else to tell of the return to Longslade View. The return walk was much the same as the outgoing walk but without the stop to look for ‘the ditch’. More Blackberries were picked and eaten and once again the walk involved vomit. This time however it was my one year old daughter who, as an afterthought to a burp, managed to throw up a blue purple sludge over my arm. I doubt though that in 13 years time I will be returning to look for the remains of the sick!

August 2010

I had been driving back and forth from Basildon for work for months before Jemima died. It continued afterwards unabated save for a single week in February when I worked from home. Life had been difficult before January 29th anyway when it had felt like I was living on Jemima’s borrowed time since she had been diagnosed with Lymphoma in November. After I lost her I started to feel less bothered about the day to day difficulties and retreated into what seemed like hourly reminiscence – sometimes more frequently. The worst time of day however was the long drive home. It was also the best time of day – an hour of letting myself go emotionally without the glare of attention upon whatever my ‘mood’ may be.

I would get into the car after a late evening in the office and the music would go on. Not just anything but the same four or five songs over and over and over again. I would start with ‘About A Boy’ from the film of the same name and this would be playing from Basildon till after the Dartford River Crossing. Once I was through the toll I would move onto ‘Minor Incident’. I had heard this particular song while I was out shopping shortly after January 29th and the words reached out and grabbed me. It was if a message was being passed to me from my baby girl. Listening to the song made me cry – every time. Hearing the words and the tone of the song took me back to the Vets table where Jemima lay before the end. The message of the song felt real to me and it helped me to let out the pain of loss. Somewhere around Clackett Lane I would move on to ‘So Much Life’ a piece from the final episode of Battlestar Galactica where Admiral Adama takes Laura Roslin on her final journey. This would transport me to the last time I took Jemima to Epsom Downs a month or so before she died – somewhere that we had spent many hours walking around when she was much much younger. This would be played over and over again until somewhere around where I turned off onto the A3. At that point I had usually drained myself emotionally enough to be able to handle coming back to the house that now felt empty despite the presence of a loving Wife, 5 Children and 2 other Black Labradors.

This same process was repeated every night for weeks and weeks and I felt better for it although it kept the pain close – but that was the point. There comes a time in the grieving process where you feel that the pain is all you have left – that to not feel the pain is to not have loved them enough. Guilt it seems plays a large part in your perception of life when consumed by grief. The phrase ‘if only’ is always close to hand but ultimately serves a healing purpose along the road back to a measure of normality. My ‘if onlys’ were centred around the fact that I don’t think I played enough with Jemima, that I shouted at her 3 days before she died and that had broke her spirit, that I didn’t pay enough attention to her in the final years of her life.

Regardless of the level of true reality in your thoughts when grieving once you recognise the truth in how you’ve lived your life and once you have felt the pain of loss you start to see more clearly the things that matter and those that don’t. You see the uselessness of many things but you also discover the strength you have forgotten and the lost freshness of outlook but tempered to perfect balance by the misfortune of life. So it has been with me.