The Small Reminders

In the days after my wife passed, I sat working through paperwork.

And it hit me — just how much had been quietly handled behind the scenes. Things I hadn't noticed. Things I'd never needed to think about. Until suddenly, I had to think about all of it.

The first time you have to fill in documentation for school. A form that arrives through the door. Anything official. You work your way down the page and reach the section for parents and guardians.

You fill in your name. Your details. The children's details.

And then there's a blank space next to yours.

And the whole weight of it lands at once. The loss. The grief. The anger. Everything, all at the same time. You put the mask on. You finish the form. You hand it back in or press send.

And you carry on.

But it never really goes away. There's always that blank space sitting quietly at the back of your mind. The space that should be filled in. The space that won't be.

---

The School Form

Documents

for the school

to complete.

Names.

Addresses.

Contacts.

Until —

Mother's name.

An ache.

The pen

floats

hesitating.

An ordinary task

that suddenly

isn't.

---

The Small Reminders don't announce themselves. They arrive in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon. In a routine task. In a blank space on a form.

The School Form appears in Not All Pain Screams — Book One of the NAPS series. Six books. One honest journey through grief, identity, fatherhood, and finding your way back to yourself.

Book One publishes June 2026.

shout out to Andy's Man Club — a charity providing free peer-to-peer support groups for men. Because grief doesn't always look like grief. Sometimes it looks like a pen hovering over a blank space on a page.

You are not alone.

And you don't have to carry it quietly.