A friend died yesterday

and I am wondering yet again if it is possible to die from a broken heart.

The friend was my beloved Whirlwind's father. He was young, far too young at forty-six. 

I miss the Whirlwind, of course I do. She was an incredible part of my life. In many ways she was the child I never had but she was not my child in the way she was her father's child. She could never have been that.

When she died (and let us use that word "died") her father was never the same. It is something we say about people but it is also true. No parent should lose a child. Losing a child the way he did was  perhaps even harder. He had to agree for them to turn off life support, effectively kill her. His howls of grief as he clung to me at the hospital still cause me an indescribable feeling of helpless misery too. That I was the only adult he felt he could be with at that point is even worse. 

I like C... as a person. I loved him as the Whirlwind's father. We were not related in any way. He had no relations in the world apart from the cousin he lived with when he went to live in the nation's capital. I say "lived with" but in reality they saw very little of each other. Both of them were the sort of public servants who put in very, very long hours. For C... work was a way of trying to avoid the overwhelming grief of losing first his partner and then his daughter. 

Here his hobbies had been his garden, riding his bike with his daughter and putting a fishing line with no bait into the water so he could spend time reading or catching up on sleep. Ms Whirlwind would get cross with him for forgetting to put on sunscreen. 

He went to a place with no garden and rarely rode his bike. Once in a while he and his cousin would take long, silent walks in the parks. Most of his time was spent working. I sent books and he dutifully read them but they did not give him the same pleasure they might once have given him.  He returned here occasionally. After their home was sold I would meet him somewhere in the city and we would sit for several hours over coffee which grew cold and food he barely touched. 

He tried. He really did try to start living again but somehow he could not make it happen. The trips out of the country were not the same when he did not have to work out what time to call his daughter every day. 

I am not going to the funeral. There will not be one. He did not want one. His cousin will be here in another month or so. We will meet for a chat, a reminisce about what might have been perhaps. 

Yes, I am upset. I am sad but I am also relieved. He was not well. He was, despite trying, not happy. He was a hard working man, a very good father. He deserved better.  Rest in peace my friend.