An unbeaten century - In the name of Thiago - Day 100

An unbeaten century - now there’s a thing I never got to say during my shambolic amateur cricketing days but that I get to say today as I reach a significant landmark with this blog.

I’ve decided to look back at the last 100 days and reflect on the journey that I’ve been on this last three months. I have interspersed the blog today with pictures of my two children, Elisa and Thiago, who mean everything to me.

Well this all started in the first week of January as purely a tentative prod, (ok enough cricketing analogies) more than anything else. There was one rule I set myself with my writing and one rule only. I was to be honest and open with what I wrote.

It’s resulted in a handful of close scrapes and some difficult conversations with a few people as my full gamut of emotions has at times been brutally exposed but through it all I’ve managed to stay honest and open. Even with all the agony and pain that putting the words out there brings me, I still feel that there’s no point in doing this any other way.

The last three months have been a whirlwind. I started the blog and announced that I was going to do a 300 mile walk and boldly, some might say slightly foolishly, stated that I would not be satisified until I’d raised £10,000 for the two hospitals that looked after Thiago in his short lifetime. Well I’m nearly two thirds of the way to reaching that target and you know what I’m not just going to reach it, I’m going to smash it. But you can still help me make it by following the link above and donating!

With Christmas and the new year only just in the rear view mirror, my Dad moved in to stay with us while he convalesced after being hospitalised and looked for a place to live. This was incredibly stressful for Angelica and I and came at a time when we really should just have been left to our own grieving, which to this day still hasn’t really happened.

Angelica went back to work at the end of February and within a month of being back, initially on a phased return, she’s now working on a dedicated Covid-19 unit dealing with the completely unprecedented levels of illness caused by the fall out of coronavirus.

I became confused by the caring face of the Conservatives as they promised support to all and sundry as the near lockdown took effect before they reverted to type with false promises to the NHS. Well let’s face it, they were never really going to pull off pretending to support a Labour idea with anything other than false platitudes I guess.

I have flirted between depression, hope, despair, abject misery, hysteria, happiness, madness and sheer fucking anger towards many people around me. I have felt happy but I can’t imagine I’ll ever be as happy as Thiago made me when he was alive. I said it at my little man’s funeral that he brought happiness where there was sadness, joy when there was pain. Life is just so much harder now.

I’ve also had to experience the disappointment of postponing my walk and now the rigmarole of reorganising everything. But that little hero, Thiago Frederick Leite Gibbs will drive me forward like never before. In the name of Thiago everyone, in the name of Thiago..