That goal was for you

I have finally got the finger-tapping will back to write, even if the motorway which my mind is currently driving down is not a very scenic one. Infact you could say there has been a multi-car pile-up in the last year. And the thing is with car pile-ups, is not just the accident itself, but the miles of stuck traffic that accumulates behind. After writing last Sunday's post, this day was on my mind. I immediately got to work on this one, knowing how the week coming would be dominated by thoughts I would rather not have at all. I figured if I splurged out some and got it parked on here it would free up space in my mind but that's easier said than done.

As many of you may know after leaving Italy and a year back in England, I then moved to Gibraltar to work. A little peninsular sticking out from the most southern part of Spain, the British enclave is dominated by its famous domineering rock that can be seen from miles around. What a lot of people don't know is that the inside the rock is like a Swiss cheese, with over 34 miles of tunnels dug in to its dolomitic limestone over the space of 200 years - it nearly doubles the length of road in the whole of the territory outside. There are inside caves and a reservoir and a World War II hospital that could even be opened again in the event of a disaster. 

Over the years I have been writing here I have dug tunnels in to my own mind. Some have become motorways heavy on mind traffic and some have become B-roads to saunter down on a Sunday drive. Others have stayed as tunnels to crawl and crouch through and the odd one comes to a dead end of brain axons and nerve tracts. Whatever the access through my grey and white matter, nothing has flowed. Gridlock. Traffic lights haven't worked effectively since the 16th May 2020.

In those 365 days, my motorways have driven head on in to a hellish abyss where the road signs have been moved and street lamps have gone out. Some days it is hard to see the white lines that divide the lanes. All you can do is park in the hard shoulder and put on the hazard lights.

I not only remember the passage of the day, but I still feel it as fresh as yesterday. One minute we were chatting and then next minute you're gone. Staring at our Whatsapp chat waiting for your reply to say things went well. But they didn't, not at all. After writing about and tributing my dad for so many years on here, I wasn't sure if I had the will to write in the same narrative again. But I will, just this once for Martyn. And there will be another time later this year on 26th October, and then 23rd December, then that's it.  

Living abroad and away from where I come from for so many years, you get used to not physically having your nearest and dearest there with you. Through the years technology with Skype and Whatsapp has helped no end, but like in my work when trying to close a deal, it will never beat face-to-face to get to the heart of it. Hmm, 'heart' being the operative and significative word right here.

Knowing someone is out there is like a comfort in itself; friends you don't see for long periods you just pick up with from your last time together like the distance has never been there. But as soon as a person is not there in the world any more, even if you are on the other side of it like many times I have been, you feel that missing energy which powers your being. Knowing not even a Whatsapp message will ever come or never be read if you send one. A hole that just can't be filled. And then knowing it is much more than just for you, when I think of his wife and his kids. 

The smiles, the laughs, the constant piss-taking, the Whatsapp brothers group where it all came to place and to preserve, that Granville family humour simmering for our next physical meet and beers. The silly birthday cards we always sent each other are better than any present could ever be. As much as I had to look after my little brother as kids (and then our mum regularly saying 'Andrew stop doing that, Martyn will only go and copy you!') the childlike misbehaving that surges back to the surface whenever we are together, bigger than the both of us. We both stand in the dock, guilty as charged, giggling at each other. When they say that kids can learn bad habits and ways of being from their parents and it takes someone, somewhere down the line to break the circle...well, we brothers started our Granville humour I think, and not our parents; a trait to actually take forward and not to break, much to the joy of Martyn's son and his eye rolls.

My dad, a born and bred northerner, would always say the word 'milk' in an almost cockney accent. I have no idea why, but I still can hear him say it. I have tried to hold on to that sound over the last 24 years. One thing I have learned in this time is that you have to actively try to preserve those memories, and those times. Take moments to sit still in the silence and play them in your mind again. Make videos, always make videos, silly ones at your own expense, especially now that we can so easily. I have lots of photos of Martyn that just make me laugh on seeing them...and lots of them with him with a drink in hand. The toast is for you today fella, many a glass. 

Spookily in yesterday's hockey match, on the 15th May, with that same number on my back, my lucky number, I scored. The equalising goal after going 1-0 under the cosh in the first half in a game we went on to win. I say spookily because it was the first goal I have scored in 2021 in this Covid-stricken league campaign. Even playing in midfield I should have put a couple away by now, in a year we are all trying to better everything than 2020 out of sheer principle. In previous matches I have hit the post a couple of times and then fluffed a couple of easy chances, but this time I suddenly took a half chance on the turn rifling it over the keeper's shoulder and in to the roof of the net. One of my better ones I have to say, I don't often strike and score them so clean. Spookily because of the timing. Of how we went under to rise again and win, of how much I needed a goal. It changed the momentum of the match in our favour, the key that cemented and finished this piece of writing and made me post it against any voices of my mind that opposed.

A goal that had Martyn's name written all over it, one I outright dedicate it to him. If he was sitting in the crowd watching he would have had that cheeky grin to go with the 'about fooking time fella...' As if he made me score it, as if it was his assist. That goal was for you bro, along with the beer after the match. Miss you every damn day.