The Saints Of Mibba
Seventh of July.
I have always been a drama queen.
Whether it was subconsciously trying to attract your attention in the few ways I knew, or plain out asking for it, I was pretty much destined to want your love and for you to notice me.
I had always wanted my father’s attention.
From a young age, I was his girl, the one who looked like him, the one with his quirks and nuances of personality.
Every night when he came home, I’d fight my younger brother for hugs from him, fight to share the joke with him in the car.
Then he wasn’t there.
Seventh of July, last day of the Summer Term 2006. A minute’s silence to mark the first anniversary of the London Tube bombings held. Clearing out the last of the work and books.
Me thinking back on how good the year had been. I’d made good friends, popular friends, through all of the arguments and fights and tears and violence. One friend was leaving, but I didn’t know that.
I got home after school finished at twelve. Ate lunch and went to play on the Playstation until I needed a drink of Fanta. I walked through to the kitchen to overhear a conversation my housekeeper was having on the house phone. I didn’t know who she was talking about until she said “Simon”. My dad.
He’d been taken into a Berkshire hospital, something to do with his heart, she told me. She told me he’d be okay, he’d be fine. I went upstairs and after a while reality hit me. I cried, hard.
Mum came home with two women from her work in a car belonging to one of them. I was giving Minstrell a cuddle, desperately trying to relax and calm down. Of course it wouldn’t be the worst.
“We’re all going to have to be very brave and strong because Daddy’s died.”
Of course it would.
Memories blur after that exact moment. I remember having the rabbit taken out of my arms and crying and screaming and being on the floor and sitting on the sofa in tears with my mum and brother.
I remember seeing him that night, being taken to that hospital in a friend’s car, holding the teddy he’d had since he was born.
I remember his face, paler than usual, his eyes bloodshot and appearing greener than usual. Black hair brushed back. Underneath a purple velvet covering. Everything disjointed and unreal.
How did I get through it?
I don’t know. I know it was the first time I really, truly tried to self harm, the first time I really, truly wanted to die, just to see him again.
That night, we didn’t get back until eleven. We woke up at around 5 after very little sleep, sitting and eating pizza in the living. It was the start of my comfort eating binge.
I was supposed to be going on holiday the next day. A week in France I was already having doubts about. The bags were packed with chocolate. Bags of Minstrels and Maltesers, the resealable ones. I ate them within three days or so.
The funeral was held at the local Catholic church, the one my mother, brother and I attended every Sunday. Dad wasn’t a Catholic and I resented how my mother’s beliefs overtook his. At least he was buried in a Church of England graveyard.
This if nothing else completely broke me away from the religion I was baptised into.
The eight weeks I had off from school that were my summer holidays were punctuated with fits of crying and screaming.
Toddler tantrums.
I refused to celebrate my thirteenth birthday exactly thirty one days later, when I was “supposed” to.
I decided to be a little unconventional, because I was the crazy girl with no father now.
It didn’t work for me.
So I changed again.
Crazy and loud and just plain weird. In your face. Desperate to make new friends.
That didn’t work either. I still spent whole lessons in the Quiet Room at my school, sobbing my eyes out.
I kept on changing, kept on ironing out the kinks I found in my personality, opinions, tastes and image until I became the girl of today. I knew why I changed every time, the small events that did or did not link to my father.
I attribute so much of this to growing up around my family. I refused counselling because the idea of spilling everything to a kind person who would listen to the same sob story emo bullshit a hundred times a week didn’t appeal.
I found Mibba instead, and I am so incredibly glad.
Thank you so much.
More than you’d care to think of the reason I’ve changed is because of this, and you.
Whether it was subconsciously trying to attract your attention in the few ways I knew, or plain out asking for it, I was pretty much destined to want your love and for you to notice me.
I had always wanted my father’s attention.
From a young age, I was his girl, the one who looked like him, the one with his quirks and nuances of personality.
Every night when he came home, I’d fight my younger brother for hugs from him, fight to share the joke with him in the car.
Then he wasn’t there.
Seventh of July, last day of the Summer Term 2006. A minute’s silence to mark the first anniversary of the London Tube bombings held. Clearing out the last of the work and books.
Me thinking back on how good the year had been. I’d made good friends, popular friends, through all of the arguments and fights and tears and violence. One friend was leaving, but I didn’t know that.
I got home after school finished at twelve. Ate lunch and went to play on the Playstation until I needed a drink of Fanta. I walked through to the kitchen to overhear a conversation my housekeeper was having on the house phone. I didn’t know who she was talking about until she said “Simon”. My dad.
He’d been taken into a Berkshire hospital, something to do with his heart, she told me. She told me he’d be okay, he’d be fine. I went upstairs and after a while reality hit me. I cried, hard.
Mum came home with two women from her work in a car belonging to one of them. I was giving Minstrell a cuddle, desperately trying to relax and calm down. Of course it wouldn’t be the worst.
“We’re all going to have to be very brave and strong because Daddy’s died.”
Of course it would.
Memories blur after that exact moment. I remember having the rabbit taken out of my arms and crying and screaming and being on the floor and sitting on the sofa in tears with my mum and brother.
I remember seeing him that night, being taken to that hospital in a friend’s car, holding the teddy he’d had since he was born.
I remember his face, paler than usual, his eyes bloodshot and appearing greener than usual. Black hair brushed back. Underneath a purple velvet covering. Everything disjointed and unreal.
How did I get through it?
I don’t know. I know it was the first time I really, truly tried to self harm, the first time I really, truly wanted to die, just to see him again.
That night, we didn’t get back until eleven. We woke up at around 5 after very little sleep, sitting and eating pizza in the living. It was the start of my comfort eating binge.
I was supposed to be going on holiday the next day. A week in France I was already having doubts about. The bags were packed with chocolate. Bags of Minstrels and Maltesers, the resealable ones. I ate them within three days or so.
The funeral was held at the local Catholic church, the one my mother, brother and I attended every Sunday. Dad wasn’t a Catholic and I resented how my mother’s beliefs overtook his. At least he was buried in a Church of England graveyard.
This if nothing else completely broke me away from the religion I was baptised into.
The eight weeks I had off from school that were my summer holidays were punctuated with fits of crying and screaming.
Toddler tantrums.
I refused to celebrate my thirteenth birthday exactly thirty one days later, when I was “supposed” to.
I decided to be a little unconventional, because I was the crazy girl with no father now.
It didn’t work for me.
So I changed again.
Crazy and loud and just plain weird. In your face. Desperate to make new friends.
That didn’t work either. I still spent whole lessons in the Quiet Room at my school, sobbing my eyes out.
I kept on changing, kept on ironing out the kinks I found in my personality, opinions, tastes and image until I became the girl of today. I knew why I changed every time, the small events that did or did not link to my father.
I attribute so much of this to growing up around my family. I refused counselling because the idea of spilling everything to a kind person who would listen to the same sob story emo bullshit a hundred times a week didn’t appeal.
I found Mibba instead, and I am so incredibly glad.
Thank you so much.
More than you’d care to think of the reason I’ve changed is because of this, and you.
♠ ♠ ♠
by Ash's Lizabeth.