Category: Updates
So quickly the darkness descends
So quickly the darkness descends
And so quickly the darkness descends.
Like those parachute games the children play, flapping them up and down by little handles on the corners, sometimes you’re completely wrapped up in the darkness of the parachute, sometimes it floats high above you, but it’s always there.
And when it descends it descends with a weight and velocity that completely surrounds you.
It engulfs you. It surrounds you so completely that it becomes all that there is.
All there is is darkness.
Beautiful fading pebbles
Beautiful fading pebbles
As with so many of these posts I don’t really know where this one is going. I know there is something inside which needs saying, but I’m not sure exactly what it is or how to say it… So the only thing to do is to start and see where it goes.
As many of you may know Claire absolutely loved the ocean, it was her dream to live by the sea but she died three days after we found a new house just 15 min walk from the beach, she never got to live in it or realise her dream… She is so very nearly made it!
She was also a bit naughty whenever she went to the beach, she used to pick up a pebble, take it home, write on the date and location, then place the pebble in a ‘little shrine to the sea’ in our garden in Hertfordshire. She would very often sit by the shrine, looking at all the pebbles she had collected and remembering the happy times she had spent by the sea. I guess it was her way of anchoring those happy memories, all she had to do was look upon the pebbles and she was back at her favourite beaches around the UK.
When I moved I carefully picked up all of those pebbles and brought them down to Dorset. They’ve been in various places around the garden here but I’ve just built a little planter in the garden as an edible garden and those pebbles have found their way into it.
But those pebbles are beginning to fade.
The writing on them is now almost illegible.
Claire’s touch upon those pebbles is dissipating.
I have a terrible memory, I don’t remember visiting virtually any of the places where she picked up those pebbles… But I do remember her writing on them.
There’s something about the writing fading which seems beautiful. I was tempted to overwrite them to keep the places and dates on them, but that wouldn’t have been Claire’s writing, it would have been mine and so it seemed wrong.
The writing on the pebbles fading is beautiful and yet full of contradictions.
The writing fades but the memories don’t.
The writing fades but Claire’s touch on my life doesn’t.
The writing fades but Claire’s memory doesn’t.
Those beautiful fading pebbles have a meaning, but for now they are keeping it to themselves…
The single most important and powerful moment of my life, ever
The single most important and powerful moment of my life, ever
I’ve just written a response to someone that left a comment on one of my old blog posts, their partner died within a 36 hour period, no time to say goodbye or make final plans.
I was just passing comment that Claire also died in a short period of time, 9 hours +/-.
The last time I ever saw Claire I was just arriving home from work, she was leaving the house with her sister on her way up to the hospital because she felt so terrible.
She looked awful.
We sat on the wall together outside our house whilst her sister brought the car round, I genuinely thought she just had a bit of a stomach bug, would go to hospital, they would give her some tablets and she’d be home in a couple of hours.
I kissed her goodbye and said that I would see her when they got home.
I never saw her again.
Bizarrely, the enormity of that single moment has only just really hit me.
A single moment in time, a split-second, a single glance, a whispered word, a knowing look and yet probably the single most important and powerful moment of my life, ever.
And at that moment, I didn’t know it.
Of course I’m fully aware that this life is temporary and that anyone can die at any moment, but I’m just wondering how different life would be if we treated EVERY communication as the last communication we would ever have.
Think about the very last thing you said to someone you love. Now imagine never seeing that person again or ever having the opportunity to say anything more.
You can’t say sorry.
You can’t tell them you love them.
You can’t correct anything that was wrong.
You can do absolutely nothing and have to accept absolutely everything.
How many moments are there which could be exactly like that?
It’s a powerful thought isn’t it?
Pain – thank you for your service
Pain – thank you for your service
It’s weird, nowadays I usually have a clear idea of what I’m going to talk about when I sit down to write, it’s been some four years since I felt the need to write for the sake of writing, for the therapy of it rather than because I had something specific to say.
Let’s see where this goes.
I went to a funeral yesterday of a friend, Aleks who died aged 36.
I was incredibly struck by the beauty of the service and celebration after.
She was bright and bubbly. The service was bright and bubbly.
She was quirky and loved life. The service and celebration afterwards was equally as quirky and a celebration of her love of life.
She loved cocktails. I saw many people celebrating her love of cocktails at the celebration after the service also!
I thought I’d come a long way since Claire died and indeed I know I have but yesterday was a reminder that what happened on 17 April 2013 will always be with me.
I guess it served as yet another reminder that this healing process through grief is not necessarily about finding ways to make the pain go away, rather, it’s about finding ways to live with the pain. I genuinely don’t believe we can make that pain go away, that pain is always with us, always there, hiding in the background yet not in a dark and threatening sense.
The pain is there to serve as a reminder of all that we have lost and in that sense the pain is good.
I don’t believe we should shy away from feeling that pain, if it’s there, embrace it, welcome it, acknowledge it for the transient emotion that it is, thank it for its service and then let it go again until the next time.
As there will always be a next time.
The pain will always resurface and when it does we repeat the same process.
This is the new normal, this is the new life, this is the way things are now and probably will always be.
So today, I’m rejoicing in the knowledge that the intense love that Claire and I shared is still there through the pain that I experienced yesterday.
Love and pain at the same time… Another lesson in learning to let go and just experience what is…
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This post is dedicated to Aleks Morris. 15th of January 1982 – 28th of February 2018 and to her family and friends.
Aleks, You made me feel so welcome in my new house when I moved to Dorset 4 years ago. You shared laughter, wine and chocolate with us on many occasions, often quite loudly… I think I never told you I could hear you howling with laughter from over the road with my windows shut!
Thank you Aleks for all you brought to my life in the few years I’ve known you.
Farewell my friend.
Climbing the mountain of grief
Climbing the mountain of grief
Sometimes, when we begin our journey into grief and loss we see the huge mountain of this life we need to live rising up in front of us… massive, craggy, insurmountable.
But if we stand there long enough, surveying the surroundings we may notice there is another way up, we reach the same destination but the journey is simpler, easier and more beautiful than we could ever have imagined.
One Final Act
One Final Act
It was a strange day on Saturday. We scattered Claire’s ashes, finally, 4 years after she died.
She had an absolute love for Cornwall, particularly one specific small beach near Falmouth. I remember visiting with her many times and I just happened to recall one passing conversation where she had said that this was where she wanted to be. She loved the sea with a passion, she wanted to live by the sea and walk by the sea every day (one of the most difficult things to clear out when she died was her HUGE collection of EVERY copy of Coast Magazine!).
I feel as though I have done one final thing for her, and I feel privileged to have been the person who carried out her very last wish.
Her life certainly does seem complete now, she was created through her parents as they consumed the nutrients provided by the Earth, she’s now gone back to be part of those nutrients of the Earth again… her circle of life seems complete.
There is now nothing more I can ever do for her, my one final act as her husband has come to pass.
I feel peaceful, I feel a sense of completeness & I feel a sense of satiated duty, but most of all I feel honoured to have been part of her life and to have been able to do what she wanted.
In some strange sense I feel that had I have died first that the passing conversation we had about where she wanted to be laid to rest would have died with me and that when her time came she may have missed out. What an honour she blessed me with.
Enjoy Cornwall my love, you’re forever part of it now.
A Lesson of Longing or Acceptance
A Lesson of Longing or Acceptance
When our partner dies we often ask ourselves the question “when will I feel normal again?” or “when will I stop feeling like this?”.
I think there is a great lesson to be learnt from this longing of the way we think we should feel.
That lesson is a lesson of accepting the way we feel, however that way is.
When we accept the way we feel we open up the possibility of feeling happy with it and also we give opportunity to feeling something different.
If we have a predetermined longing to feel a certain way then we close down our mind to the endless possibilities that are out there.
When we truly accept the way we feel and are happy with that then I think we are making progress.
I think.
Therefore I am!
When will the pain stop?
When will the pain stop?
When will the pain stop?
When will I stop feeling like THIS?
Both questions I hear many times from widows and widowers.
Claire and I were together for almost 30 years, the intensity of the love that we had for each other was immense.
The intensity of that love continues and I have no wish for it to die with her.
Because the intensity of the love that I have for her continues in her absence the pain continues also.
I have no desire for the intensity of love to stop, ergo, the pain will not stop either.
I have two choices.
- Fight the pain.
- Accept the pain.
Fighting the pain is committing to a life of futility and struggle, the conflict will always be there, lose the pain and lose the intensity of love, two sides of the same coin.
Accepting the pain is making a choice… making a choice is taking action… making a choice is doing something and is choosing. When we choose we take control and taking control is uplifting.
The pain will never stop but as time goes on I find ways to deal with it, accept it and choose to live with it.
I choose to stop fighting… Do you?
Day Zero
Day Zero
For the year after Claire died I wrote so many blog posts and every one of those contained so much pain. In recent times the blog posts have been more positive and uplifting… But sometimes the pain returns.
It’s my youngest daughter’s 18th birthday today.
Claire and I had 4 kids, all close together, 4 under 4 years old at one point!
It was really tough with no time to think or do anything for ourselves… All there was were the kids.
About 10 years ago Claire started to count down the years, months and days to when she considered herself ‘free of parental responsibility’ when the youngest was 18.
Every time the kids kicked off, she’d smile at me and say through gritted teeth “7 years, 3 months and 2 days to go”. We laughed. Sometimes.
She told all of the kids (and me) that when she was free of parental responsibility that she was having a year sabbatical. No cooking, no washing, no cleaning, only doing things that she wanted to do.
When she died the countdown was at 3 years 11 months.
Today it’s at zero.
The one thing that I’ve discovered over this past four years is that whenever there is pain this can be helped by taking a ‘learning’ from the situation.
When we learn something it’s a positive, we can either learn something that we should do or learn something that we shouldn’t do… Either way we can improve our lives for the future.
So what have I learnt this time?
I’ve learned that:
- This pain will never go away, it’s part of me, it’s part of [my] life.
- What happened to us as a family will continue to impact us when we least want it to, birthdays and anniversaries are no exception.
- Putting life on hold isn’t worth it..
- Be clear about why we are delaying doing things we want to do and ask ourselves the question “What does this thing I want to do in the future get for me? And how can I have that, at least in part, now?”, That thing we are putting off may get us freedom, enjoyment, fulfilment, excitement or something else… Why delay those feelings, let’s look for other ways to enjoy them now, whilst we can.
Today is a day of very mixed emotions. I’m totally excited for my daughter, happy in so many ways and yet, at the same time so desperately sad that Claire never saw her day zero.
Or perhaps she did…
The paradox of death and living
The paradox of death and living
When someone close to us first dies we can be lost in the depths of grief and despair and unable to think beyond the next second.
Every second is pain.
But as time goes on we find we can live two seconds before the pain hits us again, then it turns to minutes, then hours, then days.
We still think about the person we have lost 24/7 but we don’t experience that deep depth of despair every second like we used to.
And yet, the true paradox is that living second by second is truly living. If we focus on the now then nothing else matters and we are truly alive, living for the moment.
Paradoxically, that deep depth of despair, second by second living can also be a path to truly living, if we let it!
What a paradox!