GavinBelfast

Things I regret.

My aunt Ella and Uncle Richard (Actually my ma’s aunt & uncle). They’ve both passed on. I don’t know what year Richard died, I was being a moody cunt too wrapped up in my own stuff, I barely thought about it, didn’t go to the funeral, can’t remember much about it. Maybe I was a teenager, it’s no excuse, I’d feel slightly less shitty about it if I was though.

I can’t even remember much about him, he was funny, maybe, he had time for us (me and Mel). I wasn’t the easiest child to deal with. (Sidebar, I can’t even remember all that much about my sister when she was younger, what she was like, how she was to me, I think I was a bastard to her, I’m sorry).

When Ella died, I was older, it was only a few years ago, I can remember the funeral, I can remember how I felt. I cried a bit in the Mission, when people were talking about her, what she was like, the love she had for her family. I cried a good bit when we got back up to Karen’s house afterwards, then I went to work and did eveything possible to not think about it.

She didn’t have an easy life, went through awful heartbreak, she never deserved those terrible things and had every right to be bitter and hateful. If anything, she was the opposite, an awesome person.

They had a big family, not just there own kids, as I said, we called them aunt and uncle and I’m sure they considered us (their niece’s kids) nephew and niece.

Even Dickie, one of their son’s really cared. Me and my friends would be smoking blow in the halls of the flats where he lived, fair enough, not too responsible to encourage that but he always kept us right, kept us out of trouble, invited us in if it was raining, threw us some food. Dude was sound, raised the right way.

I remember feeling such sadness when I saw him before the funeral, he looked empty.

I remember going to the caravan down at Ballyferris with them, we didn’t have foreign holidays back then, didn’t need them, we stayed in a caravan the size of an ice cream box, the TV was powered by a car battery, we had to walk half a mile to the watertap to get water for everyone. We’d walk for hours up and down the beach, Ballyferris to Donaghadee, then out to Ballywalter, Richard might do a bit of fishing, try and get some willicks. I remember Mel telling me we were fishing once and Richard threw a big fuck-off fish at me and that I near shit myself cus of it, wish I could remember that myself…

My regret is I wish I would have told them how I felt, I should have at least went and seen Ella after Richard died, I hate myself for not doing that, something so simple. The last time I saw her was at me and Donna’s wedding, I probably thanked her for coming or something, can’t even remember. I remember bringing the invitation over a few months before, me and Dane went over, Dane didn’t want to be there and I remember feeling really awkward, fuck knows why. She was the same as she’d always been, that was the first time I’d seen her in a right few years so she was interested in what I’d been up to, think Karen or Ruby had been keeping her up to date. I was only there for 5 minutes and left, fuckin asshole.

These people cared for us, that’s what I remember. I should have cared more for them, I should have let them know.

Maybe I’m remember all this through rose tinted specticals, the happiness is just in my head and I’m just focusing on it cus they’re no longer with us, it’s entirely possible, I don’t really care, this is how I remember them, I loved them both.

There are other people in my family that I owe big thank you’s and much love to, probably more love and respect than Ella and Richard. Being introverted the way I am, it’s hard to express feelings to people. I just hope I get my head out of my hole and do it before it’s too late.

I always considered that odd, that I was being a bitch for not being able to talk to people, so few people really know what I’m like, the person I really am, that’s my fault, I’m 27, I can’t blame my parents any more, being a parent myself now has given me a slightly different perspective, they were just people, they are how people are. I won’t use the word that’s in my head, it’ll sound too harsh.

Maybe I’ll write about them, puke my soul up into some blog, sadly, that would probably be the only why they’d ever really know how I feel.