Remembering Jacob - 5 years on

It was five years ago today that we lost Jacob, and that sentence never gets any easier to say. Half a decade is a long time for anything, especially for someone to be gone. I always dread September when it rolls around. It just seems to loom over the year like a dark rain cloud, and the first couple of weeks feel like a storm I’m just waiting to pass. But while five years feels daunting, I’ve also been taking the time to realise just how much light there has been in the past five years.

When Jacob passed, I felt like my entire future had been shrunk before my eyes. I couldn’t see how I would be able to live my life or achieve anything under the weight of the grief on my shoulders. But looking back at the things I have achieved over these past five years, I can see that despite that grief and that weight, I was still able to live my life with zeal and enthusiasm, perhaps more so than before. I was determined that despite my grief, despite all that sadness, I would live my life for Jacob. I would do my best and keep putting one foot in front of the other so that if he could see me, he would see that I was happy. And it’s not a perfect formula: just the other day a song came on while I was cooking dinner and I started crying out of nowhere because it reminded me of Jacob. But grief is not really something you get over. It’s something you learn to carry with you. And even though there are days that feel heavy and impassable, the storm does pass and the sun is always waiting just behind the clouds. 

I heard a lyric the other day that really got me thinking; “grief is love with no place to go”. There is so much love in my heart for Jacob, but for a while I had nowhere to put it. I have family members and friends, but there was always a very distinct Jacob-shaped hole in my chest. So when our chair of trustees, Sam, came to me with the idea for a charity set up in his name, I jumped at the chance to join. It sounded like the perfect idea to both preserve his memory, but also inspire people to experience the joy of making music, something Jacob himself loved more than anything. It didn’t take me long to realise that this was exactly the place for me to pour all of my love for Jacob into. I see him everywhere in the charity: I see him playing music with us at our Songwriters & Storytellers evening, I see him talking and laughing with everyone at our JBT Live events (maybe even performing a song or two), and I see him at our monthly trustee meetings, feeling all of our excitement for what lies ahead. Even for the people involved in the charity who were never able to meet Jacob, I know that they feel his energy and passion in everything we do. It’s infectious, and I know that when I’m at a JBT event, I feel the same way I did whenever I was with Jacob. 

Jacob was such a special person, and I always hope that through the work we do through the charity, we are not only preserving his memory but also sharing his energy. While we are going into the fifth year without Jacob, we are also fast approaching our third year as a charity. My hope for our future is that we spread the reach of the charity far and wide so that we can support more and more young people and share Jacob’s memory with as many people as possible. So for the anniversary of Jacob’s loss this year, talk about Jacob. Share your memories of him with everyone who will listen, talk about his passions and his favourite bands, and tell them about what we do at JBT to keep his memory alive and thriving. Because even though we can’t see him, Jacob is alive in our words, our actions and our memories. And as long as we keep shouting about him from the rooftops and singing his name, he can never be too far from our hearts.

The grief never really stops hurting. But as cliche as it sounds, it has gotten easier. As always with a day like today, I hope everyone is remembering Jacob in their own way and taking comfort in one another. He was loud, funny, charismatic and a genuinely lovely person. Energy like that doesn’t just disappear. It’s in each and every one of us and it’s only going to keep getting bigger. 

We miss you, Jacob. Then, now, forever and always.