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Tag: loss

My beautiful daughter’s prom

My beautiful daughter’s prom

prom night

Last night was my beautiful daughter’s prom. It was tough.

The kids all met at a friends house for a pre-prom party, so many Mums were there having their photographs taken with their kids, a tough day.

It wasn’t easy for me to get there yesterday and I now know the full horror of what being a single parent is actually like. I’m trying to work a full day, look after the house, keep everything running and be there for the kids at the times when they need me. Thea told me that I didn’t need to worry about going to the pre-prom party and I almost didn’t go, but I moved some things around working a little later in the evening and I’m really glad I did.

The temptation to say ” Claire would have loved this” or ” it’s so sad that Claire isn’t around to see this” is mightily strong, but doesn’t get us anywhere. I could go on and on, all day every day thinking the same thing. Every new experience is something that Claire is missing out on. She won’t get to see her kids grow up, get married or have more children of their own. She won’t get to live by the sea or enjoy all of that time we had planned travelling around in a motorhome visiting the coast of the UK.

I’m not sad for myself, I’m sad for her.

The love that she had for us endures yet so does the pain of her not sharing these experiences with us.

This has been the hardest post to write for some time, I guess it’s because yesterday was such a ‘real’ experience made more noticeable by the presence of all the other Mums.

I’m not sure yet of the best way to cope with this kind of loss. The loss of those shared experiences, those experiences that we would have enjoyed together that now have been tainted with loss. I suppose one of the ways of coping is to just avoid those experiences, to never have fun again! I can certainly see why that would be appealing for some people, if we have lost someone dear to us and we just curl up into a ball then we won’t have any positive experiences which make the pain of loss feel greater.

Every time there is a positive experience we are reminded that we are not sharing it with the one we love. And that hurts.

But I’m not going to do that, I’m going to put myself in a position where I can have those positive experiences and when I’m reminded that I’m not sharing them with Claire I will experience the loss, the sadness and the hurt that she is not there with me – I will acknowledge those feelings, I will learn something from those feelings, I will apply what I learn to myself so that next time I experience it I can grow – and then I will move on.

And for me, that’s the way it has to be…

There’s no fitting title

There’s no fitting title

I’m really starting to notice that Claire shaped hole in my life now. She died just over a month ago and it really feels like it!

We’re coping pretty well with the practical stuff, the kids are mucking in and our families have been great, it’s the ‘loss’ stuff that is really hard to deal with.

I guess I’ve never really experienced loss quite like this before, most other emotions (it seems to me) we get a taste of throughout our lives – anger, fear, sadness etc we all get a little taste of – but loss we only ever experience when we’re ‘in’ that situation fully.

When I wake up in the morning I feel it. In recent years (since I stopped at the lab) Claire got up before me, so I’m used to waking up in an empty bed… but I used to look forward to coming down stairs and seeing her smile at me.

In the middle of the day, when I’m sitting in my office overlooking the road, I could see her when she pulled up in the car outside after work. I used to look forward to her waving at me as she got out the car.

In the early evening, I often used to sit upstairs and watch telly and pop down to find Claire watching Coast or Escape to the Country or Homes Under the Hammer or some other seaside/property program – now I don’t bother, I just sit in my bedroom thinking.

Of course I miss her all the time, but there are certain times of the day when it really digs, and living here, in this house, those old habits and constant reminders are prodding me almost every second of every day – and those prods are sharp and painful.

Where is this blog post going? I’ve no idea, but I needed to write that down so I am aware of when the feeling’s gone… or at least reduced!

I watched ‘The Kings Speech’ the other day – that was not nice. Claire and I wanted to see it at the cinema, but life overtook us and we never made it. We then decided we’d wait until the DVD came out and watch it then, but life overtook us and we never made it. We then thought we’d watch it on TV – it was on a few months ago and we recorded it, but life overtook us and we never made it.

I was then browsing the recorded programs and found it. It was really strange watching it without Claire – I mean, it’s only a film but it just seemed wrong. Claire was supposed to be there as I watched it… just like she is supposed to smile at me in the morning, wave at me from the car and be watching Coast in the evening. But she wasn’t and the sharp dig that I got still hurts.

Unfortunately with this post I can’t think of anything positive to say, we just need time I guess!

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POSTSCRIPT

On re-reading this I found a spelling mistake. I type pretty fast and most of the time I’m not thinking about which key to press, I’m thinking about the words to say. With that ‘unconscious’ typing I made a spelling mistake… or at least my unconscious typing made a mistake – and that mistake was in the first line. Instead of writing ‘…Claire shaped hole …’ I originally wrote ‘…Claire shaped whole …’ – perhaps my unconscious knows something I don’t.

Today I’m going to let my unconscious mind notice what it needs to notice in order for that hole to be whole.