Rolling Along Like a Bent Penny

How are you doing? The most common question that I get asked. As my Grandad used to say, my answer is now “Rolling along like a bent penny!”. That one little phrase describes quite accurately what it is like three years after Evie died. It is rare to find something so simple that sums up something so complicated. It’s all down to the imagery that it conjures up.

Most of my days wobble along, but generally head off more of less in the intended direction. Never really straight or swift, just drift along, gently meandering about a bit. Every now and then the ‘penny’ hits a speck of dust and wobbles quite violently but it doesn’t quite fall over. The oscillations can be quite disturbing for a while, but soon enough it goes back to the random wobbles. Every now and then, the penny diverts and performs a small loop, or even heads off in a new direction for a bit. It is almost as if the penny has a mind of its own.

Sometimes though the wobbles become so bad that the penny falls over completely. But unlike 3 years ago when Evie died, and even for the following 2 or 3 years, somehow, and I have to confess that I have absolutely no idea how it happens, the penny is back up again after a short interlude and carries on rolling along its wobbly way. This is the biggest change in my life. The getting back up part happening almost without me noticing.

Periodically, it seems as if the penny is taken off to a workshop or smithy and given a bit of a pounding to try and get it back into shape. But just like a car panel that never looks new after a bump, so the penny is back to its wobbly ways soon enough.

That’s what post-child-death life looks like. And if that’s as good as it gets then I suppose that’s good enough. I’ve learned to carry the pain, to live with it and recognise that it is what I look like now. Bruised, dented and prone to falling over every now and then. But … I get back up again because I have survived the worst that this world can throw at me, and I wobble off into the future. I tried running from the pain but the pain is part of me, the pain honours Evie, and it forms the wobbles, it knocks me down occasionally. It is who I am.