Memoirs of a biker widow (4)

Julia Day-Stewart - 21 Feb 18

The Butterfly Effect

‘Shame he didn’t have life Insurance’

If I had a pound for every time someone said that stupid statement I’d be bloody rich.
Yes it is a shame. It’s a shame also that he didn’t Foresee his death. Its a shame he thought he was invincible. It’s a shame that car was coming at that exact time on the other side of the road. It’s a shame I didn’t keep him talking that few seconds longer before he left on his bike.
It’s a shame I hadn’t gone with him, he wouldn’t have been so reckless. It’s a shame the weather was so nice that day. It’s a shame he’d convinced his brother to pick his bike up.
The ‘it’s a shame’ list is endless.

I just want to scream every time I hear the ‘if only ’ and ‘it’s a shame’ . Like I haven’t had them going round and round and round in my head.
The guilt trip I have, his brother has the same, his friend has the same for not being able to ride out with him that day.
Maybe he wouldn’t have gone so fast with someone else with him, maybe he would have gone faster.. showing off and they’d both be dead.

The Butterfly effect is the proper name for it.. one action creates a wave of consequences, a path to follow that has ripples. All the ‘if only’s’ and ‘what if’s’ would just spin you off onto a different path. I do believe he had diced with death before, maybe we all have?
Being that few minutes late leaving, did you then miss the ripple of having your own accident.
Thinking too much about this butterfly effect can send you quite bonkers !

But I did think about it a lot and still do.
If I had been with him that day on the back of his bike..

‘Want to come to Thorpeness’?
‘nope can’t bend on that bike’ ..

It was an R1 and to ride pillion meant to have your backside in the air and to literally bend in half. I couldn’t bend anymore I was 26+6 weeks pregnant.

‘You’re boring!!!’ He had said.

That was our penultimate conversation. The final conversation with Rob had more banter, we called each other pet names, he told me I was unemployed because I was planning an hour long, midday bath. I called him a ‘gay boy’ for doing a Dodgey dance in his super tight biker wear.
He said he’d see me later, I told him to have fun and watched him bounce away in a ‘mince’ like prance.
I lay back in the bath and listened to him roaring his R1 engine for a few minutes.
What a bloody tart, thank goodness it’s a Saturday lunchtime or the neighbours would be peeved.
I heard him roar out of our road and out of the estate.

Within 10 minutes he was dead.

If only I’d stalled him. Kept him in bed longer, gone with him.

If only I’d told him I loved him that one more time.

If only I’d never bought him that damn bike in the first place.

Then he’d have found some way of getting one anyway.. and still thought he was invincible. Who knows. No one does and no one can change what has happened but we can learn from it.
Thats the butterfly effect from Rob’s accident.

Julia Day-Stewart

Mum of three. Widow at 35years of age. Mother, Nurse, Realist. Broken but surviving. Lost and drowning but floating in the light of the moon. Amazed by the power of love and the strength of human compassion. I am no writer, I barely scraped past my gcses. So excuse the appalling grammar. I lost my soul mate in 2017 whilst pregnant with his first child (now aged 7 Months). One moment, one poor decision and so many lives destroyed. I decided to start a blog. Firstly to empty my head and help with my own PTSD and secondly to try and help others. Grief can be very lonely and physically destructive.

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