Charlotte Lamb 1975 to 2012

I've finally mounted and hung the pictures of Charlotte that I wanted, so I can take all the others down.  The majority of the pictures I had were of my wedding, and that seems strange now, because I’m not married.  I’m a single man, able to get out there and seek love from whoever I choose.  Not that I choose to.  I’m really not hoping for a girlfriend as it wouldn't fit; I’m very funny about sharing Florence’s upbringing right now.  But I can’t deny that it is lonely sometimes.  I miss the physical presence of a partner, and hugs; I definitely miss those.  Florence is on the receiving end the hug gap right now.  Obviously she loves it; she’s two, but at fourteen, possible not so much?

I now have a small number of carefully chosen images, in one place, so the rest of the house is free for me to put whatever I want, where ever I want.  It sounds fairly obvious that I have carte blanche to layout my own home as I wish, but actually making decisions, and the type of decisions I've made form a major part of this last year.  It is one year to the day since Charlotte died and it’s time to review the last twelve months.

First off, Florence and I are doing very well.  I know this because people keep telling me what a good job I’m doing.  I wonder how many single mums get told they are doing a good job?  Few, I expect.  Not because they aren’t, but because no one tells them.  I have noticed an implicit assumption in society that a man cannot raise a child on his own.  Apparently, only women have an instinct for this; well that’s fine.  I have intelligence; intelligence trumps instinct every time.  I know I’m doing a good job.  I can see it.  I spend a lot of time trying to be an honest judge about our life together.  It’s probably why I can write so candidly.

My life is at the very least smoothly functional.  I am happy, my house is tidy, I’m not in debt, there are a number of kind and helpful people around me, and I have a little girl who is happy and lively and vivacious, and for a two year old, well behaved.  Certainly her eating, and sleeping, and playing present me with no great parenting workload.  The last year with her has been highly enjoyable, teaching her, learning from her, and watching this being form before me.  I don’t remember what I did before Florence, or why I did it.

Florence learns very quickly.  She might not manage something at first, but she sticks at it till she’s got it.  In the last year she has mastered scooters, tractors, peddling, and her balance bike.  She dresses herself, takes herself to the toilet, and puts DVDs away when she takes them out the PlayStation, even if it’s not in the right case.  Her talking is constant, and her sentences ever more sophisticated.  The other night she even washed her own hair while I was fetching her bedtime milk.  That went fine until she rubbed her eyes with soapy hands.  I didn't know she could reach the shampoo.  She is in the 87^th percentile of height for her age mind.  Wonder where she gets it from?

A lot of this smoothly functional life stems from the decisions that this last year has presented and how I've gone about making them.  It possibly all starts before the funeral.  I had a talk with a very dear friend, themselves experienced with close loss, and they were surprised, and perhaps a little relieved, that I had already accepted that I had permission to live.

I was with Charlotte for fifteen years, but I will be without her for fifty.  To try and dwell would be unworkable, and harmful, certainly to Florence.  I am, as my friends, and the friction it has induced, would testify, relentlessly practical.  A situation that is impractical and destructive would simply not be permitted.  I live my life, not because I have to, but because I want to.

I was helped in this by us being a very close couple, that Charlotte was very clever, and we knew she was dying.  Combined, this allowed us to talk, and plan, about the what-ifs and the what-nexts.  Charlotte chose to go to the Countess of Brecknock hospice as she was very clear that the place where she lived, and the place where she died must be separate.  Florence and I required our home to remain just that.  It was a noble act and typical of her.  Incidentally, in the weeks after the funeral, her friends raised £1,300 for the hospice.  Well done everyone.

I am still under official instruction from Charlotte, not to mope.  I’m not a moper anyway.  I like to get on with things.  I enjoy getting on with things.  I become frustrated if I can’t get on with things.  I have frustrated myself quite a lot recently.

When you are on your own permission has to come from yourself.  There is no one to ratify or counter your decisions.  The only perspective you have is your own, and that allows for some fantastically bad choices.  I’ve not made any, or at least can’t see any with hindsight, because my strategy to making these decisions has been to do it very slowly.  Because I lack another person’s context, the only option I have is to wait until my context has changed and then see if the decision still stands.

I can’t decide if Florence is so well suited to this single parent upbringing because that is her personality type, or because she has been shaped by losing her mum so young.  But whichever it is she is so so, good, at it.  She has been a pillar to me for the last year, and I don’t think it has been a burden to carry her father at all.  And now she is no longer a baby, she is a companion, and I am utterly grateful for it.  She has spent quite a lot of the last year on her own, as I can’t be there in the room supervising or playing with her full time; I have so many other things to do to.  But she just gets on with it.  If she wants me she will come and find me and talk to me or have a cuddle, and then go back to doing what she was doing.  Florence is a very independent little lady, and while I’m very glad of that and will encourage that self-reliance throughout her life, I do wonder if she’s had to find this skill a bit quickly because it’s just the two of us?

But we’re a team now.  Just us against the world; and we have it outnumbered.

Around our home I've done a lot of throwing out, and a bit of decorating.  My bedroom was first; very important to get my identity stamped there as quickly as possible.  Now I’m planning in other areas of the house.  The lounge will be next.  The disco lights and lasers are already in; next the massive sofa to form the core of a social hub.  It’ll just have me and Flo in it, but it’ll look like a social hub.  That may be an example of a man lacking female supervision?  Would Charlotte have allowed it, perhaps not, but my sofas are quite old and looking worn, and replacing them will do no actual harm.  There are worse ideas.

There is a very strong desire to sell my house, leave, and not tell anyone where I've gone; the full ‘clean slate’.  The feeling comes and goes, but it returns regularly, when I’m angry with people, or disappointed with people, or none of those things.  I’m not going to do it; the emotional side of me has never been in charge, I’m too rational.  It’s a bad plan; the nuclear option is always a bad plan, that’s why it’s called ‘the nuclear option’.  I have spent a good amount of time this last year trying to understand my emotional decisions, but act on my logical decisions.

Despite outward appearances, it hasn't all gone to plan.  Florence has started play school, and it is going very well, she loves it.  On the way home she will talk about when she can go again.  I take her swimming on Saturdays and she can’t wait.  As soon as she is changed and the armbands are on, she’s off and in the water.  With her legs going for it, she propels herself from one end to the other, climbs out, on her own, and jumps back in.  There’s no fear in that little girl, or big girl as she describes herself, but then she is ‘nearly out of two’.

My troubles lie in the minutia; the trivial side issues we all have to deal with; opening my post to see if there are bills in it, remembering to return calls, that manner of thing.  My evenings have become incredibly unaccomplished; I do nothing.  I don’t mean I watch telly, then I would be entertained and learn something as I’m the guy who watches BBC4.  No, I do nothing.  There has been a lot of going to bed at half nine in the last year.

For example, while I am not a sports fan, if I have a sport, then it is formula one, but as an engineer that is unlikely to be much of a shock.  I like the technology, and the innovation required to make your car better than the others, while been constrained by the same technical regulations.  But I also like the interplay of the teams, and how they are run and what effects these different methods have on the side stories in each season.  Ferrari, for instance has a lead and a second driver.  If they have an aerodynamic modification that they think will make the car better, then the second driver gets it; if they know it makes the car better, then the lead driver gets it.  The main job of the second driver is to not get above their station; to be publicly hit over the head by the lead driver every weekend.  It must be a crap job, in an awesomely great way?  McLaren don’t play favourites; both drivers are equal.  They have their own technical team and each is trying to beat the other every time they strap in.  Charlotte was a big fan too, and we would watch the races together and talk about the politics between in-between.  We both liked and focused on different areas, but over fifteen years you get very familiar with how each other’s perspective runs.

I haven’t watched a single race, or read a single article since she died.  If I hear of a controversy at the grand prix on the news, I make no effort to find out what it was.  It has just turned off.

I haven’t watched Doctor Who in a year either; although I have now decided to catch up in time for the fiftieth anniversary.  Which may be tricky as it’s not far off.

This is symptomatic of the psychology of scarcity.  Humans, at least in our modern world, require three main things; health, wealth, and social contact.  If you feel you are very poor in one of those areas then the brain can become distracted and focus on the missing element, which makes it very hard to move forward and solve the problem.  When Florence is around or friends are about, or I’m at work, then I’m fine and get things done; it’s when I’m alone that the inertia kicks in.

Fortunately I’m a clever guy, so once I know something is happening and why it is happening, I can compensate for it.  The decision to overcome has been made, and as a result I feel that I have improved my situation and manage to put that extra bit of push in to keep myself going.

I’m going to the gym again.  I’m determined to keep the blog going.  I’m outlining a novel.  I used to write ultra-violent shorts, but I've decided to go for science fiction, as it’s science and it lets me write about things that don’t quite, but could well, exist.

A particular plus is that I've managed to stop been angry with people for no actual reason.  Some of the things that have set me off in the last twelve months I refuse to admit to.  It didn't suit me, and I didn't understand it, which really didn't suit me.  And it’s not penny psychological nonsense like, your wife is alive and mine is not.  That’s very silly reason to be angry, and you’d have to be angry at an awful lot of people with that reasoning; comfortably over a billion.  Now, when something that did anger me happens then I relax, and accept that it’s happened, and that other human beings have other lives.

I am helped in this, as in so many things, by Florence.  She is not an angry person.  She is a very outgoing little girl.  Only the other day we were out in the street on our scooters, when she noticed one of our neighbours, whom she know a little, was working on his car.  So she sets off down the road, pulls up alongside him and launches in to a conversation about something or other; all smiles and curly blond locks.  I like gregarious Florence and I can’t have angry David spoil it, so he had to go before she started copying him.

On balance I feel I have coped well.  It would have been our wedding anniversary recently, and if I’m honest I had to be reminded what day it was.  That weekend I went to Mottisfont, where we were married, and sat on her bench, which I had arranged for the National Trust to provide.  I sat quietly with Florence, before our friends arrived for a picnic and gave her a big hug, and wiped a tear.  It’s a nice setting and I like visiting it, then we climbed trees and had fun.  I’m not moping you see.  There is a future to take a firm hold on.

My STEM ambassadoring is moving along, and I may have a gig, well two actually.  And I’m a Bloodhound ambassador too, so I can now officially bang on about how cool a one thousand mile per hour car is, and that Britain does make things; awesome things that other countries can’t make.

And I’m cooking.  I’m trying to make things I've not made before, while also improving some old favourites.  My bolognaise is fabulous, I know this, and I've tried to make gravy like Charlotte.  The first time I did, it was brilliant, every time since then, I've decided to go without gravy.  Having been left with a cupboard full of every type of sugar and flour that there is, I have started baking too.  Not made my own bread yet, but a step I feel will be coming soon.  It’s very gratifying, and someone has to teach Florence how to do it; it’s what mums do.

There is so much to teach her.  I’m really looking forward to it.

Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s in to year two we go.  Don’t worry; you’ll all get dinner invites.