The Likely Resolutions of Oliver Clock

by Jane Riley

They say old habits die hard, which is true, but I also think that new habits are born easily when you live on your own.

‘I know it’s difficult making decisions at a time like this. That’s why it’s best to take the decision out of the decision.’

She was adept at building a doorless igloo around her heart. No one was getting in, least of all herself.

Whereas Dad was like a strawberry cream chocolate with a hard exterior and soft inside, Mum was a chocolate toffee – hard all over.

It took days for me to accept that the last time my father was there was not to order me around in his usual blustery way but to roll in quietly and inconspicuously, lifeless and cold on a gurney, and, unexpectedly, to call up deeply embedded feelings I never knew existed. Grief clobbered me on the head with the full force of a cricket ball and made me flounder, as if treading water in the deep, scared to drown in sadness.

What I had little experience in was the ellipsis of life. The bit before the end that no one wants to know about, the part where words are hard to find, stumbled over or not said at all, when the act of doing is only the biding of time.

You’ve got to accept all the different cloud formations that come and go and may do so for some time yet. They’re all part of the process, Oliver. Do not berate yourself for the clouds, do not worry if they hang around, do not fret if they bring storms; let them. Let them wash you, cleanse you, refresh you.

‘What you’ve got to remember,’ he said, ‘is that you’re number one. If you don’t care enough about yourself, who will? You need to believe in yourself. Believe that you have the power to turn things around, fix your business and your love life.’

I must get a life. Can you ‘get a life’ or does life find you?

‘You know, Oliver, sometimes life has a strange way of showing us it cares. And the act of accepting this can be the hardest thing to do.’