copyright@gerryrose

 Jilly never thought that she would be someone who would ever attempt to break a door down. What would anyone’s first instinct be if they received the following text from a friend who lived close by.

‘Just wanted to say thank you for what you did today and goodbye I can’t cope with this anymore. X’

  Jilly almost ran to Babs’ house. The lights were off. She knocked on the door and there was no reply. She threw stones at Babs’ bedroom window. There was no response. She rang Babs’ mobile and could hear the phone somewhere in the sitting room. She considered ringing the police, but time was slipping by. She felt a rush of adrenaline and she charged at Babs’ front door with her shoulder the way that you see cops do it on the T.V. Unlike the T.V. it didn’t give in easily. She decided to run at the door and kick it. The noise disturbed a neighbour who came to see what she was up to. The man was in his pyjamas and was probably about 40.

‘What the hell is going on? Who are you and why are you trying to break down my neighbours’ door.’

‘I am her friend and I am worried about her. She has been going through a rough patch. I have tried ringing the doorbell calling her and she doesn’t answer the phone but I can hear it ringing in her sitting room. I am frightened that she might have tried to end her life.’

‘Ok, so I have a key shall we try that first before you attempt to break and enter? You don’t strike me as burglar material.’

‘Oh thank goodness, yes that would be great.’

The neighbour fetched the key opened the door and waited whilst Jilly checked on Babs. Babs was slumped in the sitting room and had taken sleeping pills and something which appeared to be one of those alcoholic drinks that you buy when you are on holiday.

Jilly rang 999 and told the operator what she had found and told her about their discussions earlier in the day. She tried to be discrete, but the neighbour was concerned and waited with Jilly until the ambulance arrived. The ambulance crew took the packet of pills Babs had taken and the drink. Jilly agreed to accompany Babs to the hospital. Jilly found Babs’ handbag and phone. She found a set of door keys in the kitchen which she took too. The neighbour locked the house. Jilly told him to be discrete about what he had witnessed. The man, who told her his name was Jake, said that he had a mum who was about the same age as Babs and he knew that his mum would not want her business to be shared with her neighbours either.

 Babs was dipping in and out of consciousness in the ambulance. One of the paramedics told Jilly to keep talking to Babs. Babs’ speech was slurred. She kept apologising for her actions. Jilly gleaned that at around 9.30 pm, she had spoken to her son and it had not been a good conversation.  

 As Jilly watched Babs she was transported back to her childhood. She was about 8 when her sister died. To Jilly her mother was never the same after that terrible day. The driver who struck her 5 year old sister didn’t have the decency to stop. She will never forget her mother’s screams. 8 year old Jilly was unable to save her mother from the consequences of the grief that she went through. As a child she had felt so helpless. Her father was grieving too, but he seemed to become colder and more distant. He became selfish and eventually he sought comfort from another woman. Her mother chose a way out of the situation she was in. It left Jilly always wondering whether she was good enough. If she had been good enough perhaps her mother would not have jumped off that railway bridge.

 As an adult she didn’t tell many people about her mother and her sister. She had waited quite a while before telling her ex-husband. When she had her own children she had been paranoid about history repeating itself. Grief has more impact than can ever be imagined. There were lots of anniversaries that impacted on Jilly. People are often unaware of what another person is going through. There were dates that were forever cropping up and Jilly often struggled on those dates. There was at least one date every month which Jilly was aware of and others were not. Whenever she met someone who seemed to be having a difficult time she often wondered if they were going through a similar sort of ‘grief day’ as she called them. Jilly knew that people often preferred to suffer in silence about such events.

 Even though she had only been 18, when her mother took her own life she felt guilty that she had not been able to help her. It had been the reason why she had joined the Samaritans at University. She had always felt guilty that if only she had detected the signs, that her mother was going to take her own life, she might have been able to stop her.

 Once they got to the hospital the staff took over. Jilly was told to sit in the waiting room. She got herself a tea from the machine which she knew would be awful. You go into a sort of auto pilot mode at these times and do what you are expected to do. She got the impression from the paramedics that Babs would pull through and that she had acted in the best possible way.

 She gave the staff Babs’ phone and told them that her next of kin was her son. She was a friend but would stay as long as they needed her to.

 Jilly thought about Babs’ son and how bad he would probably feel. He like many people probably felt that Babs was made of iron and was very resilient. Jilly knew that mothers who lose children are often cast as strong plucky types in any film or novel. Why can’t people understand that when you lose a child you lose a part of yourself. Jilly’s mother had to appear to be tough for Jilly’s sake but inside she was broken. Jilly’s mother had said something to her about 6 months before she died which Jilly often thought about,

‘Women like me represent everyone’s worse nightmare. I frighten some women, because they think if something like this could happen to me, it could happen to them too. I am fed up of being some woman’s manifestation of her nightmare.’

 Although Jilly had not lived in Hove for that long, she knew that Babs would need a network of kind people to get her through this. She would need people who were willing to be a support network for her. Babs did not have family living close by but she would need people who were willing to be her local family. She would need a group of people who would know what she had been through and would commit to supporting her to find meaning and purpose in her life again. Jilly wondered who might be willing to do this. She would be guided by Babs. However, she sort of already knew from who attended Babs’ party who would be able to do this. She also instinctively knew that there would be more women than men.

 She felt a WhatsApp group might be the best vehicle for this. She would see who Babs advised her to tell about this incident. She was prepared to have a frank discussion with Babs about the need for this group. She knew that it was time to share her story about her mother with Babs. Her mother would have benefited from a close group of friends who had her back. Jilly knew that we all need such people. She was also aware that some of her friends who were part of a couple did not receive the support from their partners that they needed. It takes a village to raise a child and it takes a community to support an older person to live well. She knew that if she didn’t build this community for Babs she might attempt to take her own life again. She was not going to have that on her conscience.

 She was aware that at difficult times in her life, she felt the sensation of the top of her head being ruffled by unseen hands. It was something her mother often did when she was a child and Jilly felt that her mother was trying to comfort her and tell her that she was good enough. She knew that some would consider this fanciful but she derived some comfort from this.

 At times like this too, she would have the song that was played at her mother’s funeral somehow enter her head as it often did anyway. ‘Sad Sweet Dreamer’ by Sweet Sensations. Her mother would have been tickled by this choice. Jilly had chosen it as a sort of light song. Her mother had often described herself as a bit of a dreamer. Jilly’s father had not wanted to be involved in the planning of his wife’s funeral yet he criticised Jilly’s choice of music. He had protested after the funeral that her mother would have preferred something a little more dignified. Jilly had said to him that dignity was not high on her mother’s mind when she threw herself in front of a train.

 Jilly knew that this was a tad harsh, but first her father had abandoned her mother in her grief and then following her mother’s death, she had read her diaries and some of the things that her mother had written about her father, revealed him as a selfish man who had not been a loving husband. Jilly had from that day on, questioned why women seemed so obsessed with finding their prince. However, she had believed in the myths of the perfect man and had fallen for her ex-husband Alan’s charms. It is often said that love is blind. Jilly had realised that sometimes what people perceived as love, was not true love. People have needs and getting your needs met is what a lot of people seek when they are in a relationship. Looking back Jilly was not sure if she really knew what she needed when she met her husband.

 She wondered why she was thinking about her ex-husband and it dawned on her that since moving to Hove, she had entered a time of her life when she needed to come to terms with being an older single woman. She thought she had, but what if she had an accident, or a stroke, who would have her back? Who would rush to break her door down?