A Jonny-shaped hole.

It's 5.26am and I know I should at least try to sleep but, instead, I find myself needing to write. Perhaps it's the fact that I started writing this week... and it brought so much up... and then I had a couple of days without it - and there are all these feelings with nowhere to go. And I've started the process so somehow now I can't go back.

I don't know what it is about this week. I'm finding the loss of Jonny harder and harder. They say grief comes in waves and when it hits it really hits, but I'm surprised to find myself returning to those nights, which were there at the very beginning, when I couldn't sleep or would wake in the middle of the night and then not be able to get back to sleep, for thinking. My mind whirring. The physical experience of loss.

There's a Jonny-shaped hole in my life and it hurts. When I first got the news, I was scrambling around for the right words to express the sense of pain and loss (bewilderment, too) that Jonny was gone. The only words that really fitted were that there was, forevermore, a Jonny-shaped hole in my life. There's nothing else to really describe it. Only Jonny can fill the hole, that place in my life, my memories, my future friendship, with him. And the feeling of sadness is getting bigger. A lovely woman who I spoke to on the phone yesterday (a bereavement counsellor) told me that life grows around the grief, that the grief will always be there. I didn't know that about grief. I thought that there would be some time when something called Acceptance kicked in and you somehow moved past the pain and it settled and you could enjoy looking back on the good times and feel grateful for that, that your mind would accept it as fact.

There are times when that's true. I do have moments of sheer gratitude for what I had with Jonny. That I was one of the lucky people who had Jonny in my life. Not only did I meet him and feel the impact of his constant striving for truth and love, but I was lucky enough to be a friend, a true friend, of Jonny's. It was something I felt overawed at, at his funeral. I've been to two funerals in the last two years where I was left with the feeling that I had underestimated the far-reaching impact of the lives of these two men. At both funerals I realised just how many people had been touched by the men who I had thought I, and a group of others, had seen such special qualities in! Whose goodness I didn't know had had such far-reaching fingers. In some way these two men - my father-in-law, Joe,  and my parish priest, Fr Michael, - had shown us something of God and His love. Good and noble men, both of them.

So this was my third funeral where I was to see, in full force, the far-reaching impact of someone's life, when it was a life that strived to be one of integrity and kindness. But this time it was Jonny, my dear and remarkable, generous, loving, huge-hearted friend. My beautiful friend. And he was gone. And in the face of his death was such a huge outpouring of love that is impossible to put into words. And as I sat in my seat feeling angry that he was gone, and more and more angry, that I had lost such a friend, there was such pathos in the fact that all these people loved Jonny - and I bet he had no idea. I'm sure he knew he was loved, no doubt about that in my mind. But did Jonny ever know how many people would weep for his loss? The tears we would shed in our private homes...? The love that we all so desperately wanted to wrap around Jonny.

There were around 1600 people at that funeral. I watched the droves start to 'queue up' , from the pub next door where I was grabbed something to eat, to keep me going through the service. All dressed in colours to reflect the colourful person that Jonny was - and that we were going to try to be here not to cry so much as to rejoice in who he was, and who he is, and what he gave us.  

I had known that the church would be packed out. It couldn't escape you that someone like Jonny, so infinitely loveable, so able to make true and deep connections with so many, would be so loved.  I knew how quickly he would open his heart to someone and share his fragility. I had even known, before the funeral, just how many cards were being made for the service - around 1600. So it's not exactly as though I was expecting to be able to turn up and just expect a seat. In fact, I had spent a lot of the morning panicking about whether I would get there in time to sit somewhere (with Baby Isaac in tow) where I could really feel that I was there, to say goodbye to my friend and finally feel that this was remotely real. And this was such an important thing for me. I had been looking forward - as strange as that sounds - to this for weeks. Jonny died on the 14th March and I'll never forget the conversation. The gap between his death and the funeral gave me a longing for this service, for the chance to say some kind of goodbye to my special friend, to cry openly with others, to come together for support, in our devastation and feeling of being utterly bereft.

But back to the loss. There's a Jonny-shaped hole in my life. My life will be forever lesser, impoverished, because now Jonny won't be in it in the way I want him to. He is still in my heart, of course. And he lives on, I am convinced. But the sadness and the feeling of loss is growing. The one person I want to talk to about it all is Jonny. The only person who truly understands the nature of our friendship is Jonny. He's the only one who knew the friendship we had and who could give me any comfort about losing it. I want to talk to Jonny. I want to tell him how much he means to me, what his friendship did for me. I want him to know how much I care... It's only Jonny who understands what I've lost. Who else was really there? They might have been there on the periphery. But the uniqueness that was my friendship with Jonny is something that only me and him really know. He knew that connection, which I find hard to put into words, and I know it. I know it. I knew it then and I know it now. I knew, back then, what a remarkable friendship it was. 

Who can understand the Jonny-shaped hole in my life? How to put into words what that hole feels like? It is Jonny who would understand. The only person who really , really knows and understands what your friendship with you is like is the other person in it. The friendship that you have is unique. Trying to put it into words is nigh-impossible. How to explain why and how much you love someone...? How to say, over and over, how sad you are to be bereft of the chance to see that person again (in this life, anyway) and to share with them, for one last time, all the memories, all the times, all the love you feel for them. You always want to say goodbye; it's so important. I was able to write to Father Michael - even though I didn't manage to visit him because the leukaemia took him so very quickly - and that helped. 

Again, another time in my life when I thought I could do something the next time I came to Leeds. What a regretful decision. It took me a while to get over that regret, of not just popping in to the LGI to call in and see how he was, impromptu, when I had that bit of time before my train. I suppose having children has made me such a planner ; I have lost that spontaneous, nay impetuous, part of me, in the day-to-day looking after of little children, where they are dependent on you to plan and pace your day. They suffer if you don't. It used to just be me who suffered from the effects of impetuous, chaotic activities. 

So I've changed. I've had to come to pre-empt, factor in, plan ahead, pace wisely, say no to social engagements which the desparate loss of. And somewhere, along the way, I have lost a part of who I am. I can't tell you how many times I turned right at that roundabout for the M62 from Leeds, the one that goes to Beeston if you go straight ahead... and thought about Jonny. In reality, it wasn't many times because after Grace was born, I rarely drove to Leeds - she hated the car and I was scared at the thought of going on the motorway alone. But the few times I braved it, I always thought of Jonny, and how I needed to call in. In fact, there was one time, I can't quite remember when, when I was very close to just calling in, unannounced. I didn't have Jonny's number anymore. I'd written on his wall to ask for it but didn't realise that he had replied by private message . I made the error of thinking Jonny was too busy for me, perhaps he viewed our friendship in a different way...? A very sad error to make.

I just listened to James Blunt's Goodbye my Lover. Sorry Jonny. I know you hated his voice and thought it was nasal and terrible. But it's always been one of the saddest I know and I used to listen to it a lot back in 2005, 2006. Well. When I spoke to my friend Sue about your passing away and how awful I felt, and how numb, and angry, and unable to focus on anything at all, she said 'you just feel hollow don't you.' And that was it, that was right. And I always loved that line 'I'm so hollow, baby, I'm so hollow.' It's a song that I go back to when I'm feeling loss, the power and pain of loss. How it hurts inside. How the yearning makes you feel so lonely. And so anyway, I just listened to it. And for the first time, since Jonny passed away, I've been able to sob. What I've needed to do for such a long time. There've been days, weeks even, when I've felt like a pressure cooker. Every emotion I felt - or wanted to feel - had to be pushed down for the sake of Grace and Isaac. You have to put a brave face on for them and display ineterst in the plastic farm animals they are bringing you or the den they're making with every single cushion on the sofa, both sofas. 

It feels good to sob. At last, a little bit of release, a little bit of being in touch with how I really feel - even if only for 3 minutes. So thank you, James Blunt. I can only apologise to Jonny that it wasn't Damien Rice - who Jonny claimed was far superior a musician - that brought the tears. Either way, I'm grateful. Maybe it will be Damien next time Jonny, my friend. I miss you.