Triggers
Every Monday morning sometime between 7.40 and 8am the bin lorry arrives. One week is the black bin, general waste for landfill, the following week is the green bin for recycling.
Every Monday morning around this time I'm stood in the kitchen at the window, making my latte and putting my lunch together and preparing to leave for work.
I've had this routine, every day during term time since March 2022.
On Monday 7th October 2024 at 7.43am the bin lorry drove into view. I took this photo for our grandson and sent it to him in Northern Ireland. He loves bin lorries. I finished making my coffee and I drove to work, parked up in the staff car park and got on with my working day.
I left work at 1pm, collected Peter and we drove to the hospital where Stephanie had been taken after being unwell that morning. We got home that evening at 9pm and our lives had changed forever.
Stephanie, our eldest child had died, without warning, no illness, no long term health problems that indicated this would happen. Here one minute and then no more.
Every Monday morning the bin lorry arrives in our street. I stand in the kitchen window making my latte and putting my lunch together and prepare to leave for work, just as I did every other Monday morning and every other day. But now, I do so with a heavy heart. I dread Monday mornings, even more so, black bin days. I dread Sunday nights when the bins go out. I dread Fridays at the end of the week as I know Monday is coming and I dread Tuesday mornings, because I know that there is only 6 more days without the bin lorry before I get triggered again.
Outside our front door is a pot full of tulips. They're another trigger. The bulbs were given to us by a friend, they're called Angel Wings. I planted them with our 5 year old Granddaughter the day after Stephanie's funeral. As she watered them she said 'stay hydrated Stephanie' I hear her voice and I'm taken back to that day, every time I step outside the front door. I waited every day for them to flower. I wanted them to flower for Stephanie's birthday in February. They've started to flower now, in time for Mother's Day.
Mother's Day. Now that's been a trigger I hadn't considered. It's hit me smack, bang in the face. I still have two mums to buy for. I still have 4 sons to be a Mother to. I'd seen all the promotional emails giving me the option to opt out of. I'd not given it a second thought and it appears no one else had either, why would or should they? I'm still a mum, I still have a mum and a MIL. Stephanie's absence is even greater.
Hospitals and ambulances trigger me. I had several medical appointments within a short space of time after Stephanie died. Going into hospital was horrendous. It wasn't the same hospital, but nether the less, it was triggering. I ended up in hospital on Sunday. I sat quietly, I couldn't switch my brain off, but I practiced my breathing exercises and knew I had to be where I was, I couldn't avoid it. I had to deal with a medical emergency in work a few weeks back, it was mentally, physically and emotionally draining, but I was on auto pilot throughout. Once the paramedics took over, I was an absolute wreck. The incident was too similar to the last moments I spent with Stephanie before they rushed her into theatre.
I don't always know what the triggers are going to be though. I can be in a supermarket and be triggered by a 6 pack of donuts that I can no longer buy and drop in. Or in a clothes shop and see a jumper with a tight waist band that would be ideal for her that would stop her pulling it up and flashing her belly. Or in a toy shop and see a rattle that doesn't look like a baby toy and isn't too hard and won't hurt anyone when she tires of playing with it and lobs it in their direction. Or I see the perfect drinking cup that won't leak in her bag when we're out and about. None of which I can no longer buy, yet I still automatically reach for, because apart from the donuts, they're rare finds and were always on my list of things to look out for and now I see them everywhere.
I can move the flower pot, I can change my morning routine, but I can't stop the bin lorry coming, I still have to leave the house by 8am for work. I can't avoid things that trigger me, maybe time will change this for me, maybe it won't. Maybe I'll just get better at dealing with the triggers. Some days, weeks are better than others, sometimes there are too many triggers altogether, like there have been this week.
Hospital, bin lorry, Mother's Day, pictures in the local paper and online of a student at the school I work in who died over Christmas, the tulips flowering. It's just all been a bit too much.
