Pivotal Moments in Life

There have been two truly pivotal moments in my life. Not momentous occasions like marriage or graduating from flying training; getting my ‘wings’. Events that changed me as a person, and the direction that my life took. Events that changed me to my core. They are Evie’s birth and Evie’s death. Both affected me in ways that I didn’t expect, and, in effect, created a new person. Some might think that meeting Patsy or getting married would also be one of those moments but they weren’t ….. sorry. Patsy and I met at 12 years old and had been married for 33 years in September. We grew up together, and our lives moulded into each others’. We evolved together so it wasn’t a sudden change. Over the years I have lost my Dad and Patsy’s Mum and Dad. Those events were terribly sad and hurt, but they didn’t change me as a person.

Evie was something else entirely. Her birth brought another being into my life that relied entirely on Patsy and I. She couldn’t look after herself in any way. It’s a cliche to say that she awoke something in me that I never knew was there but it’s true. I had always been anti-children. Noisy, smelly little creatures that got in the way. It came as a complete surprise that I had any sort of paternal instinct. Her birth changed everything and I loved it. I went from being a man to being a father. Everything changed. My priorities, my focus, everything. It was a revelation.

Evie’s death brought the second pivotal moment. It was cataclysmic. It devastated everything that the previous 13 years had built, along with everything before that. The physical feelings are bad enough but the emotional ones, the change to me as a person cannot be over-estimated. The changes have been so deep that I don’t recognize much of what is left. It is an unnatural place and one that is still alien in so many ways. I take anti-depressants and have been diagnosed with depression.

To me, pivotal changes are ones that change you forever. Change how you think, how you act, permanently. I have definitely changed forever. There’s no going back even if I wanted to. My 18 year-old self would look at me now and be convinced that we weren’t related. Children’s births define us. Their deaths rewrite the rules altogether.