When my auntie died, who was also my Godmother, it was the first funeral I had ever been to and I was about 9 years old. I remember being strangely excited about it, like I was a character in a Jacqueline Wilson book, which I read a lot at the time. My extended family and I sat in a room before the funeral and my brother and cousin played on the PlayStation while I sat on the floor. My Grandpa (my auntie’s dad) entered the room, I naively remember him looking confused. He had some blood on his face and head. I watched as my dad took his dad away and helped him clean up and shave properly. I did not actually see this happen, but knowing my own dad’s matter of fact personality, and my Grandpa’s dazed confusion at the time, I imagine the scene, my dad busies himself cleaning his dad, both numb to the fact they had lost a big sister and daughter.
I came home after and wrote a poem about my Godmother as a goodbye, without showing it to anyone I hid it away and haven’t found it since