Fragments of The Whole World

Grief has a way of rearranging time. You find yourself holding certain memories with astonishing clarity, while others slip away like they were never quite yours to begin with. When I think about my dad, the moments that rise to the surface are rarely the big life events. It’s the tiny, ordinary ones, the ones that didn’t feel important at the time, that have become the anchors I hold on to.

I remember sitting beside him, both of us hunched over a sketchpad, trying to draw Chichester Cathedral. He had this patient, encouraging way of making you feel like anything you created mattered, even if the lines wobbled or the perspective was questionable. We weren’t doing anything extraordinary, but the feeling of being completely absorbed together in something simple has stayed with me far longer than the drawing itself.

I remember the walks to school, when he’d launch into Buddy Holly songs without warning. Sometimes he’d harmonise terribly, sometimes he’d sing the wrong verse, and sometimes he’d just belt it out at full volume because he knew it made me laugh. I didn’t appreciate then that these were the rhythms of a parent letting you into their world one silly moment at a time.

And then there’s the image of him dancing in his tasselled coat to Elvis, completely unselfconscious, completely himself. That’s the kind of memory grief both gifts and protects. You see the person as they were before life complicated them. Before illness. Before worry. Before you grew up and realised parents are people who existed long before you did.

What I struggle with now is knowing that I only ever held one version of him. There were chapters of his life I never read. Stories he didn’t tell. Dreams he outgrew. Friends whose names I never learned. A whole constellation of experiences that shaped him long before I arrived. Losing him has made me acutely aware of how much of a parent’s life remains unspoken, how much we assume we’ll ask later, and how easily “later” disappears.

That’s the ache that lingers, the knowledge that I knew him deeply, but not fully. The parts I did know are precious beyond words. But the parts I’ll never know feel like pages missing from a book I want to keep reading.

Grief doesn’t resolve that. It doesn’t neatly tie up the story. But remembering these everyday moments, drawing together, singing on the walk to school, dancing in a ridiculous coat, reminds me that love lives in the small things. The tiny, unremarkable seconds that become irreplaceable once they’re gone.

If anything, losing him has taught me to pay attention. To ask more questions. To capture the details. Because one day, those little fragments become the whole world.