Episode 21: £21.44 & Other Emotional Ambushes

This week, a £21.44 bank transfer stopped me in my tracks, Oscar promoted me to professional cyclist despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and a GP appointment left me questioning whether I'd accidentally wandered into a satire sketch.

This is an episode about recognition, resilience and the people who understand without needing an explanation.

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Transcript

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Hello and welcome back to the Early Morning Coffee Club, a podcast where grief is intense, humour is finely ground, and strength stinks up on you like a double shot. Thank you for all the lovely messages welcoming me back last week. It was really lovely to hear from so many people. And yeah, it's good to be back. So, what's happened this week? Well, I received an email from one of Alex's old bank accounts informing me that he had the grand total of £21.44p remaining in one of his bank accounts. They were writing to let me know that they'd be transferring it to me before closing the account. The next day I was at work rushing between patients, and I just happened to glance at my phone and I saw this notification. Alexander Gilbert has transferred you £21.44p. And for one tiny ridiculous heartbreaking millisecond, my heart skipped. Before my brain caught up, obviously. Before I remembered. And it's funny, isn't it? Not funny, haha, but funny, peculiar, because nearly a year and a half in, and something as mundane as a bank transfer notification can still feel like a punch to the chest. I just stood there staring at this notification on my phone and wondering how something worse, less than a Chinese takeaway, could feel absolutely priceless. Grief is weird like that. Speaking of things that made me cry in public this week, I bought a new bike seat for Oscar. Alex and I loved cycling. Before Oscar came along, we'd spend weekends disappearing on our bikes, stopping for coffee and cake, pretending that counted as like an athletic achievement or something. Once Oscar arrived, we bought one of those little bike trailers. He mostly used it as a mobile nap pod. And then we upgraded to a seat on the back. Well, when I say we, it was actually Alex that rode with Oscar, because I was never entirely convinced that a small child combined with my coordination was a safe combination. Anyway, Oscar absolutely loved our family bike ride adventures. As did Alex and I. And so I've always been determined that just because Alex died, it didn't mean that those adventures had to die too. So this week I promised Oscar that I would cycle him to nursery. So off we went, Oscar was sat on the front of my bike, clutching his own little tiny handlebars, like he was competing in the Tour de France. And every time I asked him which way we were turning, he'd stick out a little arm with such seriousness that you'd think that he was directing air traffic. When we arrived, he sprinted into nursery announcing, My mummy cycled to nursery today. I went on mummy's bike, she's so fast. Now was I actually fast? No. Objectively speaking, I was overtaken by a pensioner and a woman pushing a pram. But in Oscar's eyes, I was basically Bradley Wiggins. And honestly, that's good enough for me. It then started raining on my ride back to work, and my feet were absolutely soaked. But seeing how proud he was to tell all of his little nursery friends made every soggy sock worth it. So now the main event this week. My GP appointment. So last week I talked about how difficult that the past few weeks had been. Something had shifted. There wasn't a specific trigger, no dramatic anniversary or anything. Just this feeling, like I'd suddenly started carrying an extra 20 kilograms of sadness that nobody could see. So I'd finally reached out for help, and my appointment was on Thursday. So I arrived, I was greeted by this woman who introduced herself as one of the mental health nurses at the practice. She then immediately followed it with, sorry, did I introduce myself already? And I thought, well, this feels promising. She's really with it today. Anyway, I explained everything. I started at the beginning, I talked about Alex, the death, the time since, the recent changes, the exhaustion, the anxiety, the feeling that something wasn't right. I cried, I talked some more, I cried some more, I finished, and she took a deep breath, reached out and stroked my arm, and looked at me with that sort of expression normally reserved for explaining to toddlers why they can't lick plug sockets, and simply said So I think what you're experiencing is something called grief. I burst out laughing, because I genuinely thought that she was joking. I thought we'd reached that bit in the conversation where she'd injected some humour. But no, she was completely serious. Eighteen months into widowhood, and I'd apparently just been introduced to grief. Groundbreaking. She continued So I think you're in stage three of grief. Now firstly, the grief stages are all a load of bullshit. Secondly, if anyone ever tells you what stage of grief you're in, you have my permission to tell them politely to shut the fuck up. I'm not even joking when I say I was biting the inside of my cheek so hard I could taste blood. Then she told me that I should make sure I was talking about Alex and allowing myself to cry, as though I'd spent the last eighteen months aggressively avoiding both. As though this podcast doesn't literally exist, as though my entire social media presence isn't essentially one giant conversation about grief. And then she asked about Oscar. He's probably too young to understand what's happened, isn't he? I blinked. Well his daddy was here one day and gone the next, so I'd say he understands that something happened. She asked what I'd told him. I explained that we'd always said Daddy loved us very much, but he was poorly, and he died. And at which point she physically gasped. Like I just told her I was raising him with wolves. I don't think you should be using that language. And I explained that every child bereavement organization and charity I'd spoken to recommended using clear language like died and death. And she said, Well, I disagree. Fantastic! Wonderful. Brilliant. Who needs decades of specialist child bereavement research when Karen from my GP surgery disagrees? At this point, my internal monologue had become almost entirely swear words. I came here because I was frightened by how I was feeling. I came here because I needed support. I did not come here for unsolicited parenting advice around the death of my husband. So I started putting my coat on, and she said, Wait, I can recommend a really good therapist. I paused. Hope flickered. Oh, do they specialise in bereavement? No, she said. Of course not. Why would they? That would be absolutely ridiculous. I left with a leaflet about grief. A leaflet. As though I hadn't spent the last eighteen months living inside one. No follow-up appointment, no referral, no support, a leaflet. I was absolutely appalled. And the thing that bothered me the most wasn't that she didn't have the answers. It's okay to not have the answers. It's okay to say this is beyond my expertise. But what's not okay is pretending to have the knowledge you don't actually have while somebody sits in front of you asking for help. Okay anyway, enough about that. Because despite all of that, the week ended with something genuinely beautiful. My lovely friend Emily came to stay with her two children. I've spoken about Emily and her family before because Emily is also another young widow. A sentence that still feels ridiculous to say about someone our age. But her son Bodie and Oscar are the same age. They'd met before. I think I spoke about this on episode nineteen, but they'd never really talked about the thing that connects them. The thing neither of them asked for. Anyway, we were sat around the table eating our spaghetti bolognese, went completely out of left field. Oscar just turned to Bodie and said Bodie, has your daddy died too? Emily and I froze, glanced at each other. Because we both knew this was a huge moment. Bodhi replied Yes, Oscar, has your daddy died too? Oscar nodded. Yes, my daddy's died too. And then they just kept going Your daddy died too. Yeah. My daddy died too. Yeah. Back and forth, again and again, like they couldn't quite believe they found another little person who understood. Another little person whose world has been split in two. I would think I was crying before either of them had finished speaking. Because what we were watching wasn't sadness. It was recognition. Then they started comparing daddies. Bodie's daddy Josh had a big beard. Oscar's daddy Alex didn't. They were both tall. They both like cuddles. But the most important thing of all, they both loved their children very, very much. And for a little while the two boys sat at a kitchen table and realized they weren't the only ones. And honestly, I think that felt more therapeutic than my entire GP appointment. Oscar. This week I watched you find someone who understood. Not because you like the same cartoons, not because you play with the same toys, but because you've both lived through something most grown-ups struggle to understand. I watched you ask one of the bravest questions I've ever heard, and I watched you listen carefully to the answer. You and Vodhi spoke about your daddy so naturally, so openly, without awkwardness, without embarrassment, and honestly, you reminded me that grief isn't only about losing someone, it's about finding people who understand what that loss feels like. I hope you always know that there are other people carrying stories like yours, people who understand, people who will never need you to explain why certain days feel hard. And I hope you always keep talking about Daddy the way you did this week, not because it makes us sad, but because he matters, because he existed, because he loved you more than words could ever explain. And because every time you say his name, you carry a piece of him forward, and I could not be prouder of you. On that note, I'm gonna leave you to your morning coffees. Thank you for listening today. I'm sorry you're here, but I'm glad we're here together. I'll see you all next week.