Tomorrow is 11th May 2018, Jerry’s birthday. It should be his 34th birthday and it feels like the saddest situation in the world that he isn’t having a 34th birthday. I think about Jerry every single day but in the past week or so even more so than ever. It’s not the same raw devastation it was before, it’s more like a lingering nagging pain that always exists under the surface of my life now. I often feel paranoid that people think that I don’t feel sad about this anymore and I feel weirdly anxious about people’s expectations of me and how I should be presenting myself. I still don’t know the answer to the question “how are you?” and whilst I do feel positive and ok most of the time now, I’ve definitely changed as a person and nothing will ever be the same again. I worry about everyone and I’m waiting for the next awful thing to happen to me. I feel very guilty about my life and I realised a few weeks ago that I spend a lot of time denying myself positive emotions because of that. Every time I feel happy I also force myself to remember what has happened and to almost tell myself “Remember that this is what happened to Jerry and that’s never going to be ok”. I’m also in a confused place where I don’t know if I’m annoyed that certain people don’t check up on me anymore, or whether I’m happy that they are leaving me alone, or annoyed when people do ask me a lot if I’m ok. I don’t actually know what I want people to be doing or saying to me.

I’ve never really thought too much about death before this but now I have my own theories about the after life. I’ve decided that there isn’t a situation that I can comprehend where you’d feel okay if you knew you were dead. If I knew I was dead I’d just be stressing out about my family and friends and trying to work out how to get back to them. I’d be like “Shit I’m upsetting everyone I need to get out of heaven and go back and sort this out for them.” Therefore, having thought about this a lot I’ve decided that you must not know when you die. Every time that you are in a dangerous situation there’s obviously different outcomes. In one reality you die. In your reality I think that this isn’t what happens to you. I believe that the after life is an alternate reality where you didn’t die and you either carry on after the incident continuing your life or you kind of transfer into a different reality that would be your “heaven”. This would be the happiest or best reality you’ve experienced. It might be exactly how your life is when you die. Or you might go back to a precious time and live out that reality, never knowing that you’ve died.

The brain has capabilites that we will never fully understand. We don’t really know the truths of the universe , or our role in anything. To me it seems perfectly plausible that time and space exists in parallels and that we probably exist in many alternative realities of different times.

Tomorrow is Jerry’s birthday. For me, and many other people, that’s very sad. We will be sad and in a strange mood all day. I’ve been reflecting a lot on the accident and the days immediately after. I thought I forgot about a week of my life but it turns out it’s all coming back to me. I’ve been thinking about the reality for me of what I’ve had to come through. I sometimes find it so difficult to comprehend it. I’ve seen someone that I love die and then be dead. That’s just quite fucked up. I cannot understand why that happened to him or to me.

However, I believe that Jerry doesn’t know that he died in that accident. We both survived and to him in his reality we are probably both just living our life like we were doing. He was very happy, I’m confident that he’s still in the reality of the 2nd January and before. I think he’s having a low key birthday tomorrow with me, at work at Y Not in the day, beers, watch some horror movies, a very normal but perfect birthday for him.

I hope that those of you who love and care about Jerry have an okay day tomorrow. He wasn’t big on birthdays but I love to spoil people so I would have made it as meaningful but low key as I could have done for him. My birthday is on the 21st, so he did say that because of that he would like a joint celebration. I am feeling weird about my own birthday this year as many of my friends are aware. It feels confusing.

Jerry was so loved by so many people who are always struggling and I understand that pain. I think he’s fine in his alternative reality and that helps me to be okay in mine.

I recently found a random folder on Jerry’s computer and found a photo of Nova and I that I’ve never seen before. I will end with that and a photo of Nova and I from today. Both still going strong.

Happy 34th Birthday JP. ❤