7th December 1922
Dear Diary,
I can’t believe it is nearly three months since Mother and Father died. It’s two months since Jonathan came out of hospital, he’s supposed to be resting but he doesn’t, he goes out nearly every night and doesn’t come home until early morning. He’s drinking an awful lot as well, more than he’s ever done before. I think it’s his way of coping with the death. I wish he would speak to me about it but whenever I mention it he gets angry though it’s obvious it’s because he is upset.
He’s decided he’s not going back to Oxford to get his PhD. I tried to persuade him to stay on, told him that Father would have wanted him to but he just became irate and told me to mind my own business. He has changed so much these past couple of months, he really is nothing like he used to be. The doctor says it’s probably because of the head injuries, people can sometimes suffer a change in personality when they’ve had a bad blow to the head. The doctor said we should be grateful that Jonathan is able to look after himself and does need constant care. He right of course but saying that isn’t really help when you have Jonathan flying into a rage and coming home in an awful state at four o’clock in the morning. It’s the drinking that worries me; he never used to drink like that.
It’s his birthday in four days, he’ll be 26. I’m not looking forward to it. Not only will it be hard without Mother and Father but also Jonathan in his present mood is hard to deal with. I feel guilty for getting annoyed with him, he’s been though a lot there past few months but they were my parents as well and having to cope with Jonathan along with grieving for them is just too much for me. Thankfully Aunt Beatrice is here and she is helping a lot. It’s not like Jon is ignoring my grief it’s just that he thinks that because he doesn’t want to talk about it I won’t either.
Yours, Evy
11th December 1922
Dear Diary,
Jon's birthday today. It was better than I thought it would be. Jon was very quiet though but he didn’t drink much, which was the opposite of what I expected. I’m glad he didn’t, I don’t know how I would have coped if he had. It was so different to other birthdays though; Mother loved birthdays and she would spend ages preparing for one. She was still making us birthday cakes – even at 21 (me) and 25 (Jon last year). Despite the fact she was Egyptian she always did birthdays in a very English way. It didn’t seem like a birthday just another day really.
Just a short one today, Evy.
26th December 1922 (Boxing Day)
Dear Diary,
Christmas yesterday. The first one without our parents. Very strange, we felt the loss of Mother and Father even more than on Jonathan’s birthday, probably because Christmas is such as family occasion. Aunt Beatrice (she is still living with us) said that it would be better to celebrate it, Jonathan and I didn’t really want to but she said it would be the best thing to do. She said that our parents wouldn’t want us to ignore every celebration. She is right of course but it still didn’t feel right. It took her a long time to persuade us to have a tree so we had to do it last minute on Christmas Eve. It was quite fun (as fun as it could be) until Jon threw his decorations down, told us what we were doing was stupid and stormed off. I wanted to go after him but Auntie told me to wait for a bit. When I did go to him he was crying, the first time I had seen him do this since he came out of hospital. He told me that it felt wrong to celebrate when Mother and Father are no longer here. I told him that they wouldn’t have wanted us to mourn for the rest of our live and that they would have wanted us to celebrate a festival they loved so well. I then hugged him and we stayed like that for a while. It was the closest I’ve felt to Jon for a number of months now. He said he’d try and make an effort on Christmas Day (tomorrow as it was to us then).
He did as well, he didn’t drink much and didn’t fly into a temper. He was very quiet but we all were. It hit us just how much Father seemed to fill a room, it was very empty without him. The dinner table wasn’t the same without him, he wasn’t there to tell stories after dinner or tease us. It was the same with Mother, the kitchen wasn’t the same without her. There used to be just a few hours of Mother and I as Father and Jonathan would go out for walk and I missed that this year. Jon went out for a walk on his own and he was very subdued when he came back.
Jonathan’s asleep now, has been for most of today. He’s very tired and I think he’s realising why the doctors told him to rest. Everything since leaving hospital has caught up with him and I think he will sleep for most of the next few days.
Evy.