The different threads that paint the picture

My story is one made up from many different threads - intertwined ones of different lengths and of different complexities.  As my story unfolds some will come to an end and then gradually, almost imperceptible, recede into the background. New threads, some almost unimaginable to me in those first few weeks after the accident, will rise up to replace them.

Some of what I will post will involve people, people I thought I knew and could trust, who would let me down horribly when I was at my most vulnerable. Other, more cheerful threads, involve  people I was yet to meet, people who didn’t even knew I existed in those early days, who went on to became central to my recovery.

Let me start quite close to the beginning. Not the day of the accident, nor two days later when I went to live with my Grand Parents but the day I went back to school. 

For most of the 1000 pupils at my school it was just an ordinary day - indistinguishable from those around it. I would like to think that perhaps it wasn’t quite so ordinary for my tutor group as the Head of the Sixth Form had been in to afternoon registration the day before to warn them that I would be returning to school. Poor thing, she hadn’t known what to say to the group. She hadn’t had much experience of death. Her parents, and her husband’s parents were still alive and her only previous brush with the Grim Reaper was when a friend from her university days had died of cancer two years after graduation. Her powers of expression had failed her when she tried to explain to my school friends how I might be feeling. The truth was, of course, that she didn’t know.

I had spent a nightmare restless night at Nan and Granddad's. Almost every negative emotion you can think of was churning through my brain and my immediate future seemed to consist of a long series of hurdles to be overcome. Top of the list of course was Mum and Dad's funeral but going back into school - knowing that I would be the centre of attention - ran it a close second.

Breakfast provoked the first row of the day so I retreated to my bedroom to pack my bag in peace. I had to think hard what day of the week it was and I had no idea what lessons I had timetabled that day. In the end I managed to get everything packed so I walked out my car ready for the short journey to school. By then the contrast between how things had been just a few days earlier and how they were living with Nan and Granddad was starting to  overwhelm me. Escaping to school suddenly felt the better of two fairly dire alternatives!