Death in a heatwave

My dad died on a beautiful day. How am I meant to frolic on days that feel just like that one?

The heat of that day is baked into my bones. Pic Unsplash

My father died on a beautiful day. The sky was a drinkable blue, the air warm in the back of your throat when you took a deep breath, summer sweet on your tongue.

In the morning, as we drove up to the hospice to sit by his bed, it was already warm enough outside for bare arms. I made a silent plan to leave before the heat started to fade, to go and sit in a park in my bra. That's an acceptable thing to do, I thought. The world is collapsing, but I can still sunbathe.

I didn't know it would be his last day.

By mid-morning he was gone. My sister and I burst out into the car park where our mother and my partner were waiting for us. It was COVID and they weren't allowed inside. Usually they waited in the car, often for hours, but today it was hot and glorious, so they were outside. They were laughing about something, tilting their faces up towards the sky. It was a beautiful day.

My mother looked over and saw us. It took her a few seconds to read our expressions. And then she ran to us. The sun was hot on our backs as we clung to each other.

On our way home, we stopped at M&S. Because what else are you supposed to do?

We splurged and bought everything we wanted. Those sweet red peppers stuffed with goats cheese, artichokes swimming in garlic and olive oil, pork pies because those were Dad's favourite. We sat outside. No one ate much. I put SPF on my face and lay back in the grass. The world had collapsed, yet I could still sunbathe. The man on the news said it was hotter than the Algarve. Everyone agreed it was a beautiful day.

Now, beautiful days no longer sit right with me. The sunshine hits me wrong, incongruous in its brilliance, mocking with its expectation of joy. Go to a beer garden, the day whispers tauntingly. Put on a cute dress. Finish work early and go to Hampstead Heath. And I do all of those things, but I can no longer do them with the same lightness.

How can I frolic on a day that feels just like that day?

For grievers, the change of seasons can be an unavoidable reminder of all that has been lost. Lighter evenings, BBQ-scented breeze, the first day mild enough to leave your jacket at home – these are the tangible symbols of the passage of time; the year quartered up, each slice experienced without your person. And then there is the visceral sense-memory of loss. Trauma dissolved into the weather, the smells, the way the light moves past your window, it lies like dust in the corners of your mind, ready to be stirred up whenever those same conditions cycle back around.

For me it is the warmth of the sun on my bare arms. The heat of that day is baked into my bones. It lingers, residual and stubborn, like the hot wind in the underground, trapped down there many summers ago.

With the heat comes the desire to sit and bask, immediately followed by the guilt of desiring that exact thing on the day Dad died. The two things are now inextricably fused for me. Death and beautiful days.

“You never know how many summers you will get, babe,” Dad said to me once, years ago, with his characteristic tendency to turn abruptly and briefly melancholy. He loved summer, he loved beautiful days.

Thank you for reading The Sun’ll Come Out, and hello to new readers who saw me, keeping it cheery, chatting all things grief on ITV Granada Reports this week. Thanks so much for reading and supporting me in my quest to normalise talking about grief and death. You can watch the full interview here.