We fly out late tonight, and I am getting stuff sorted out today with the feeling that I am wearing Velcro shoes in a Velcro clad world. Apparently grief thinks my ability to be functionally productive is delicious and has eaten it all, like a big, hungry grief monster. I am fairly sure a sloth could have easily galloped past me given the slightest head start.

Case in point; I am supposed to be packing and instead I am doodling the grief monster eating productivity. Totally helpful.

The frequency with which I have made this trip in the last two months is staggering, and I feel entitled to some sort of glittery wing brooch or a bronze statuette of me holding a tiny airplane looking smug and accomplished. (Either those or free inflight booze, WestJet, I am looking at you.)

A gaggle of our England family are also en route today, arriving tomorrow throughout the day. Long trips by plane, train, car and hovercraft (kidding but that would be most cool) The need to be near is just too strong for us all; we just need to cluster together and share our collective tears and laugh at memories and celebrate and hug to release the denial that he is actually gone. But to also solidify the fact that he will never, ever be forgotten.

The intention is to buy enough duty-free to make a barmaid in a tavern of ill repute, blush like a school girl. Go Team!

I know our human capacity for adapting to life’s changes are truly endless. And I know in my heart that each passing day will be a shaving less off of this monumental carving of sadness; but right now feels like we might never be happy again. My dad taught me to always accept and embrace the next life challenge with an open heart and head. I just didn’t fully factor in all these chalkboard dry and empty feelings that adhere to us like a gluey sadness-suit lumbering along for the journey. Why you gotta be so lame, Grief…why?

Death, divorce and moving, apparently top as the most stressful events in life. I have not been divorced, so that is not something that I can speak to and if you asked me today I would be happy to move house everyday of every month if it would just bring him back, healthy and whole again. The finality of it all is just so unbearable. We are not the first family to lose someone so loved and we certainly will not be the last. If you still have all of your someone’s to love, hug them tighter today and don’t let ugly words slice their way in before saying words like “I love you.” But most importantly make sure that they know it, everyday, by your actions just incase you don’t get the opportunity to always say the tiny words.

Stress feels like a disease that runs throughout the body; like that ink they inject into your blood stream to do certain scans and tests so they can see what all of your inside bits are up to. (Seriously, if you have never had that done count yourself as lucky, that stuff is vile. A big old icy vial of vile.)
If stress is a disease then all of this sadness must be a symptom; like sneezing is to a cold. The sadness fills up our human container and leaks out in tears and sobs when we get too full. My container is obviously the size of a thimble with the capacity of the ocean. (I really hope red puffy eyes and snot are in fashion this season...) Mum and Trudy are absolute wells of grace and have the ability to function remarkably well on very, very full vats of sadness; their strength keeps me from falling head first into my own.

I am proud to say that I learned nothing about holding onto sadness and festering the disease of stress from my dad. He simply is not a sad kind of guy and never lost sleep to the mechanical talons of stress. In fact, I don’t think he ever lost sleep to anything, that guy really loved his zzzzz’s. He could pretty much fall into a deep sleep almost on command.
Life lessons were to be learned from, crushed and then stacked into the archives of experience, no amount of tears will ever undermine all the foundations he taught us to build. (Except perhaps that time he put too much acidity into the pool and while it glowed a violet hue, he said we could swim anyway and our blonde hair turned slightly green. Mum was not impressed.)

This is us all together (yet apart) championing him on Monday night right after he left us; because he had to go be whole again. Cheers to you, dad, I can imagine you being pretty happy seeing everyone have a tailgate party up in the hospital car park. The ‘C’ in Craig stands for ‘classy’.

His lust for life and the ridiculous was contagious and no amount of sadness can whittle that away. This video is some very typical, Jim, spinning some tale of bullshittery beads of wisdom.

so much love.

Out of necessity and not a predisposition to making people drive to Trincity, arrangements have been made to have the service and cremation at Belgroves Cremitorium Orange Grove, Trincity

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10 Orange Grove Road, Trincity, Trinidad & Tobago (left after Johnson and Johnson)

Service is at 9:30am – 10:30am  |  11:00 Cremation
Saturday, January 18th, 2014
Followed by the most epic Cooler Party at the Craig Residence
(Hope Cottage, Ariapita Rd, St. Anns  – but seriously you all know where that is)

Please consider carpooling, particularity to the house after, if not for the benefit of the environment, for the logistics of parking and not having to haul arse up a very steep hill.

Also please feel free to wear any array of colour, no need for the sombreness of all black, unless you particularity want to because it is slimming. And no neon or leopard print or neon leopard print (I am looking a you, Trudy)

My dad suffered from seasickness. Which for most people, is a completely avoidable affliction. Yet he sailed, alone, across the Atlantic in a small yacht. Twice. The concept that he could potentially overcome anything was not totally unjustified.

The overwhelming feeling that I am not ready to say goodbye keeps flooding in. Keeping afloat with family, friends, memories and love is the only thing swatting away a drowning urge and holds all the ugly truths at bay.
We will never hear his voice again and I quake inside knowing how much he taught me and how much more I wanted to learn.

When are we ever ready for sadness and loss? He fought like a champion until he couldn’t fight anymore and this would all be so immeasurably easier if he were an unpleasant human and a bad parent. But the slicing truth is that he is an amazing husband, friend, brother, uncle and father. None of us could have asked for more.

He felt trapped in his crushed body and fought to stay, mostly for us, as long as he did. His vitals started to drop again in the afternoon and he once again lost consciousness. This time his blood pressure and heart rate steadily plummeted. My sweet, brave sister put on some headphones with nature sounds for him to drown out all of the medical beeping and gadgetry. He slipped away peacefully within an hour. A valiant, strong, amiable warrior of a soul.

Tears continue to prove their pointlessness by leaking down my cheeks and into my ears when I lie down. I feel like I am swimming in the ocean. Dad loves the ocean.

I didn’t think it was possible for sadness to resonate so thoroughly through every fibre of my being. Dad passed away around 6:34pm this afternoon. He was calm and brave. This is all I can write right now. I will update more when I ache a little less.

He is gone.

Miracles in their inexplicable inexplicability, apply to my logical brain in the same vein as fairies, aliens, Big Foot, clean public toilets and finding the edge on a roll of scotch tape in the first try. I love being proven wrong in times like this and I am learning to let go of my vice grip on compartmentalized logic and fly a large kite of faith into the unknown. Miracles do and can come in all shapes and sizes.

“The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.”

Miracles to me are now starting to become Jim Craig shaped. He is somehow able to maintain his own blood pressure and oxygen levels, with no drugs and minimal medical assistance overall. This guy is defying so many odds and continues to deteriorate logic; which really I suppose he has done in various ways all his life. Go Team Weirdo!

Dr Mahadeo has noted that his left arm is a bit stronger today, though his hands are still being defiantly stoney and still. Time, time, time, we honour you and continue to hold vigil to the hope that a miracle will reignite and melt his frozen body so he can walk away from all of this, literally and figuratively.

My sister and mum are the shiniest and toughest broads diamonds ever. I adore them so much, just like a baby monkey locked in a room full of bananas and ice cream.

I honestly don’t know how they do it all with such decided grace and strength. They are both so amazing, but it really is just such a shame about Trudy’s face. It must be hard for dad to have to look upon that everyday. I have made far too many recent posts without making fun of Trudy and this saddens me deeply. I felt strongly the need to remedy this by making her this special animated GIF below. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy having her as a sister. 

He is currently unconscious and somehow maintaining a blood pressure level of 67/36 which is pretty squishy. (These official medical terms abound though my constant stream of tears)

He is holding on right now. Everyone is around his bed and loving him. My mum and sister are absolute tanks of strength, while I sit here and generate enough snot to lubricate entire factories. Crying really is the worst thing ever. It is so pointless and unhelpful. I mean who needs to not be able to speak clearly and have water leaking from your face at times of crisis.

Trudy said before he lost consciousness he was calm, peaceful and full of dignity. This guy, my love knows no end.

His blood pressure plummeted yesterday afternoon. He was as white as his sheets. An emergency dose of a stabilising drug was administered to bring him back and help him regain consciousness which then made his volatile pressure skyrocket. This is apparently all in line with the condition of his broken body, it’s functions wane because of the immobility and basic things like maintainable blood pressure start to fail.

My dad’s giant sized arms, hands and limbs are rebelling against this frost.

Trudy was alone with him and I feel like I am drowning in the ocean between us. I don’t know how she is so strong and able to cope in the raw face of it all.

Today will indicate how much his body is able to do on it’s own, without drugs to help it with basic functions. We will learn if his heart and circulation can regain a healthy vital flow and work as it has since his beginning of time.

I have always considered my dad to be as strong as the iron and bronze in these cannons. I hope and pray that he can defy every odd stacked against him right now; just like some of these relics that were submerged in the dark ocean depths, but were dredged back to the shimmery surface and restored with love.

I read some interesting thoughts today on uncertainty and the unfamiliar. It was on a site that I follow, because it hosts collections of words that are smarter than I am and I hope to someday have my very own words like these. 

“It is a sign of great inner insecurity to be hostile to the unfamiliar.” Anaïs Nin 

This quote stuck me as a truth that I need to employ more in my life. Still, I don’t know if the fragility of the entire situation is lapping me again on this racetrack or if the fact that I had to leave today sank in too deeply. But I feel sad and very hostile to this unfamiliarity. I had hoped to be able to leave on a more familiar note; I had dreams of getting back to my life with the same sort of magical synergy, that would make it so that everyone could simply get back to theirs. All of us humans in our respective homes, feet where they should be, jobs to be worked, food to be cooked, happy and familiar, life goes on happily ever after. The End.

I wanted this unfamiliar time to be recoiling faster and feeling more deeply the wrath of our whipping it away daily. Yet it still hovers, and I don’t recognize anything to be quite the same. I had to fly back home, to my life and my family[friends] and my pets and my more robust supply of undergarments.

These guys are seriously like “Yo, mom where were you?”

I wish I could stay to fix, what I know in my heart, only time can tell to fix. I expect that my inner insecurity is fear and I have to keep teaching it to stop being so hostile to all this unfamiliarity.

But to me unfamiliar has always read as un-family, and nobody wants an UN-family. (I guess unless you work for the United Nations and somehow that makes sense to you, “hi, welcome to my UNfamily home, would you like a cup of UNtea?”…I digress)

Dad opened his eyes and said I love you. I pretended to at first not understand him and said “What’s that dad?….did you say.. ‘Thai Kung Fu?’ ….. ‘Pies for Hugh?’” We laughed but it’s all I could do to keep the painful lump of knotted tears buried in my throat and out of my eyes. Tears are wet and they spoil everything.

“I love you too, Dad. I love you too”

Please keep fighting. All this familiar (family) misses you desperately.