Category: Updates
That bitter/sweet contrast
That bitter/sweet contrast
I caught up with an old friend yesterday that I haven’t seen for 20 years, we had a lovely home cooked meal together and talked constantly for 9 hours straight. It was so nice to have a 1-2-1 chat with an adult that shares my view on life and understands to some degree what I am going through. Last night I felt human again for the first time in many many months.
And yet this morning I took the dog for a walk to the beach, it was a stormy morning (which I love by the sea) with the waves crashing against the shore line, and I felt so desparately lonely again – worse than before.
It’s as though when I taste the sweetness of happiness the bitterness of loneliness tastes 10 times worse.
It’s that sharp contrast from one state to the next that exacerbates the negative emotions of the negative state, I can certainly see the temptation in withdrawing from any activity that could be positive… it just makes coming back down to earth so much worse! In the case of last night, I spent 9 hours in good company enjoying catching up with the past 20 years – of course we talked a lot about Claire but it was all positive and happy memories. Yet, not 1 hour after I got home, I was in bed in the dark and feeling totally lonely again.
A bi-polar existance is not one I ever imagined having.
With any of my blog posts I make an attempt to learn something new, to take something away from what I have written that I didn’t know before, in that way I can grow and develop and continue discovering the new me… So what can be learned from this?
- These emotions are normal and I’m not a freak.
- I need to incorporate those bipolar experiences into one experience of life. Even as I’m writing I can see that I have compartmentalised the wonderful nine hours I spent yesterday and put them into a ‘happy’ box, which I am then comparing to being back home again which is in the ‘lonely’ box. Of course these two boxes look different, they are at different ends of the spectrum… So I wonder what would happen if they were in the same box! If I didn’t compartmentalise things and give them labels of ‘happy’ or ‘lonely’, and I just accepted them all as an experience of life then they would all be together in one big ‘life’ box and suddenly the bitter/sweet contrast is gone… And that feels so much better… and there I have the learning for today! No need to write any more!
Happy because of those Christmases past
Happy because of those Christmases past
Christmas is beginning to get a lot of people in my situation down. I take part in quite a few forums and discussion groups, they often help to share what’s on my mind and know that I’m not going crazy or indeed that are not alone. These groups have lit up in the run-up to Christmas… It doesn’t take much to understand why.
And yet, even though I too am not relishing the idea of spending my first Christmas without Claire, if I think about her I still feel warm and loved.
At Claire’s funeral I read out a short poem, it’s been repeated on this blog twice already so I’m not going to reproduce it here again in its entirety, but one line really stands out to me…
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.
The love that Claire and I shared was truly special. I knew it was at the time but I can feel it even stronger now in a paradoxical kind of way. Tomorrow will be Christmas day. I can either turn my back on that day and live for all of the Christmases that have passed or I can be happy for Christmas Day because of all of those Christmases passed.
As I’m sitting here again struggling to hold it together, I feel so blessed that I had such a wonderful wife for so long.
Christmas Day might be difficult, Christmas Day might be easy. I’m not going to make a decision now and then let the day turn into a self fulfilling prophecy. The day will be what it is and I will rest, happy because of all those yesterdays.
Grieving the old me
Grieving the old me
I have just seen this on a forum, it is extremely insightful and as I think about it now, it applies to me completely:
“Loss definitely changes you as a person and I found myself not only grieving for <<name removed>>, but also grieving the old me”
I can feel this happening with myself. I know that I have changed fundamentally since losing Claire, I also think that it is inevitable that anyone that was close to her, with Claire playing a large part in their lives will also have changed inextricably. We’ve lost Claire and we’ve lost a lot of old selves.
This seems to be a double grief, a double loss – a loss of someone very special and a loss of our old ‘self’ which was in part governed by the person we have lost.
One can argue that we are not defined by the people which are around us and that we are our own selves, but for me I gave myself entirely to Claire. When we said our wedding vows I promised that I would give myself to her without question, and that is what I did. So she did define me, she was part of my character which is why I think we had such a great relationship… we acted as one, we were one character which clearly would lead to grieving for the “old me” also.
It would be easy to become extremely melancholy about that. I happened to quite like the old me, I was comfortable with that person, so what now?
I guess it’s a slow process of discovering a new me, and indeed it’s the process for everyone that is experiencing that same thing to discover their new ‘self’.
As I said we could become melancholy, but how about we view it as an opportunity? An opportunity to discover something new. An opportunity to discover a world which existed outside of our old ‘self’. And in that respect, with that view of things, it goes from the melancholy to the exciting…
MELTDOWN!!
MELTDOWN!!
Last night I admit to having bit of a melt down. I’ve been chatting with a great guy on Facebook that has also recently lost his wife and he posted a comment about the number of years that they had been together, and he started counting those years from the moment they first kissed.
What a great way to answer the question “How long have you been together?” – it’s not measured by years of marriage but by the years that a couple’s hearts have been entwined, and that entwining begins when they first kiss.
I can remember that moment so clearly, we were at a Christmas disco, everyone knew we fancied each other (now there is a term that you can only use if you’re 16! – Who says ‘fancied’ any more ) and there was a little too much cider flowing – someone was walking around with a big bunch of mistletoe and they held it over me and Claire… I don’t think we needed much encouragement!
That was the moment, that was the moment that our hearts entwined and we never let go.
But when was that moment?
I knew it was around Christmas but I couldn’t remember exactly when, and then I remembered seeing the date written in Claire’s little diary, but where was that diary?
And so the meltdown last night commenced. Hunting high and low, searching through old paperwork, files in my office and boxes which are still unpacked from when we moved.
As you can see I found that diary in the end hidden in a drawer in the bedside table underneath Claire’s pyjamas which are still there. And there in Claire’s own handwriting is the reminder of that date.
She had an uncanny ability to remember dates like that, she wouldn’t have had to look for a diary to know… But I’m so glad she took the time to note it down, that day our hearts entwined is there in black and white and now it’s etched into my mind too – 7th December 1985.
Thank you Claire for writing it down, I think a little part of you knew that someday I would need that diary and your note… and that day was yesterday, 28 years and 4 days after you wrote it. xxxxxx
My Last Christmas Card
My Last Christmas Card
Claire, I wanted to write my last ever Christmas card to you. At the time I wrote the one last year I never knew it would be the last one I would ever be able to give you, that leaves things a little unfinished… and so here’s my final Christmas card I’ll ever write to you:
“Dearest Claire,
Well, it’s been quite a year again. So much has happened, we’ve moved house, the kids have changed schools and for what ever reason you have been taken from us. I never thought in a million years that 2013 would end like this.
But thank you for loving me this year, thank you for being there and thank you for being you.
I still love you more than you will ever know, and now you’re gone I miss you so, so, so much.
You are still my angel, my saviour, my rock, my life and my everything – even though I’ve been writing that since we were 16!
I love you more than words or this poxy computer and website can ever explain.
Sleep tight my sweetheart, you can rest now.
M
xxxxxxx”
Please continue sharing
Please continue sharing
I’ve just had another one of those moments when I’ve realised something and I want to get it down in writing as soon as possible.
Because of this website I’ve been in contact with so many other people that have lost their partners that I decided to set up a secret Facebook group for us all to chat. We currently have 15 ‘members’ and we share our stories and thoughts with each other and I want to share with you a brief story from the group.
People often say to me that my story is shocking, we lost Claire so rapidly, she was seemingly fighting fit in the morning and gone by the evening – no history of any illness, no signs and no symptoms until her body started to shut down. We had no time to say goodbye, in fact we didn’t know that we needed to because we just thought she had a stomach bug.
A good friend of mine shared their story this morning and mentioned that their partner had cancer and went from 14 stone down to 5 stone. When I read that post I actually spoke out loud to myself in shock. I was just stunned that someone could lose so much weight.
Now here’s the rub, if anyone loses someone prematurely it’s always shocking, we all have that shocking story because dying young is just not the natural course of things. Our tendency in today’s society is to not talk about death, and I admit to completely ignoring the subject myself up until 17th of April this year. But if we do talk about our feelings and share our stories we can quickly realise that we are not alone. In the darkness of our own thoughts and in the pain of our own stories it can feel like a terribly lonely place, and when we share we can realise that the world is full of beautiful and lovely people who genuinely do understand what we’re feeling.
So I would encourage you to share your own story. Don’t be afraid to tell others about how you really feel, I bet you’ll discover they have a shocking story to tell too and suddenly neither of you are alone any more.
To the people that are sharing their stories with me, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Not looking forward to Christmas
Not looking forward to Christmas
This is one of those post where I have no idea where it’s going but I have to get this off my chest.
I’m not looking forward to Christmas one bit.
Christmas in our house was always organised by Claire. She did all of the present thinking and the buying, she sorted out the kids stockings and wrote all the Christmas cards. On one level these are all practical things which I’m okay at, kind of like getting the house work done, the dog walked or the washing sorted – bung it in a spreadsheet, print it and put it on the kitchen wall and it happens. But Christmas is more than just the practical buying presents and writing cards, it needs some thought.
Presents need to be carefully selected for the right individual and the right words need to be written into a Christmas card for it to mean anything, or what is the point?
I don’t know what to write. It doesn’t seem appropriate to wish all of the seasons happy blessings on someone else when I feel so desperately alone. I’m not filled with the joys of Christmas, I’m not bounding around the shops wanting to join in the festive fun, I’m just sitting here alone wanting my Claire back!
What do I want for Christmas? Guess!
This is a time of year for families to get together, and that’s one things I AM looking forward to – we’ve got almost everyone coming to ours this year which will be tough, but good to be all together.
The problem with this time of year is the constant reminders that she’s not here that is so difficult to bare.
- My wife hasn’t asked me what I want for Christmas this year.
- I’ve got no-one to surprise with an oddball gift that only she knows what it means.
- So many cards that have WIFE written on them, and as with everything, when something is on your mind that’s all you see.
I suppose it depends how we look at those reminders. (This feels like clutching at straws for me right now but I’m desperately holding onto any positive thought that I have) Each time I’m reminded she’s not here and it hurts it’s also a reminder that she was so lovely, so loving and kind and that I am one lucky guy to have experienced that.
I’ve now reminded myself of this that I read out at her funeral… now may be a good time to revisit it!
You can close your eyes and pray that she’ll come back or you can open your eyes and see all she’s left.
Your heart can be empty because you can’t see her or you can be full of the love you shared.
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.
You can remember her and only that she’s gone or you can cherish her memory and let it live on.
You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back or you can do what she’d want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.
Our natural healing process
Our natural healing process
I had a bit of a revelation yesterday whilst thinking about what I would talk about on the Huffington Post live interview. It’s strange how these revelations can happen at the weirdest of times and I was driving the car when this one hit me.
I was thinking about healing, and it occurred to me that if we cut ourselves or injure ourselves physically we don’t instantly start running to the doctors to ask how we are going to heal. We don’t get worried about where we are in the process of healing, should blood have clotted by now? What should my haemoglobin level be to this cut to heal? When exactly will the two ends of this broken bone begin to need back together, what is the process and how long will each stage of that process take? We don’t bother with any of that, we just trust our bodies innate ability to heal these wounds at the right pace and at the right time.
So why do we think it should be any different with emotional injuries?
Could it be that if I just don’t bother wondering what stage of the grieving process I’m at or how long it’s going to take that my mind will just heal itself?
The more I think about that, or rather, the more I don’t think about healing the more peaceful it becomes. I can see there is no need to worry or be concerned about anything, I trust my mind and body to do what it needs to do, when it needs to do it.
I think that sometimes the temptation is to try to rationalise things and get our highly educated brains working on solving the problem of how do we overcome our grief. But the reality is when we do this we ironically get in the way of the healing process and our highly educated brains interfere with the natural healing process, much like we tell a child not to pick their scab on a recently grazed knee. “It’ll never get well if you pick it” I can hear my mother telling me now…
So I’m not going to pick this scab, I’ll let my mind do what it needs to do when it needs to do it, and that’s just fine.
1st Holiday Season Without A Loved One – HUFFPOST LIVE
1st Holiday Season Without A Loved One – HUFFPOST LIVE
Late on Friday afternoon I was contacted by the Huffington Post live broadcasting to see if I would be willing to participate in their HuffPost Live shows which will look at the topic of coping with the loss of a loved one over Christmas, I admit I was a little nervous because I didn’t really know what was going to happen but you know me, I just went for it and said okay.
Without any prompting from me the grief counsellor Dr Judith Johnson mentioned my favourite phrase ” live in the now”, well how nice it was to hear someone else say that this is what we should do. She took it a little further and said that it would be good to not have too many plans for Christmas, who knows how we are going to feel at any given point, and if we have made definite plans and don’t feel up to it on the day then it can be rather stressful if we are unable to say no.
So in the run-up to Christmas if I have agreed to be somewhere or to do something and I let you down at the last minute, forgive me. And likewise if you have agreed to be somewhere or do something with me and you let me down in the last minute, don’t worry about it.
My plan for Christmas is to have no plan and right now that’s just the way I like it.
Here’s that interview…
Do Nothing, it helps
Do Nothing, it helps
I’m reading an amazing book at the moment called Do Nothing, it’s not specific to grief and loss but is specific to life in general… So I guess it pretty much applies to me as I think I’m still alive!
The themes within the book are familiar to me as I spent the last two years on bit of a personal development drive and what I’m discovering in this book is helping more, let me explain.
Since losing Claire I have been very aware of the label ‘grief’. As soon as we choose to adopt a label like this then we can begin to act out everything we believe about that label, and so it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Many people believe they are ‘an angry person’ or perhaps they believe they are ‘not coping’ – these are just labels and so guess what happens… Yep, they begin to believe those labels and act them out which serves to reinforce the belief in the first place – a never ending cycle of destruction.
What we really need to understand is that we have an inside world and an outside world. The outside world is everything that goes on out there, everything that happens outside of our own mind, which is pretty much everything. We then have an inside world where we think about things and decide what the outside world means. We notice things but the problem is we delete more things than we notice and so our inside world becomes distorted.
The biggest problem is that the inside world IS the world to us, it is all that we know and it taints our view of everything outside of us.
We do indeed create our own world inside our own mind through the power of our own thought… comforting stuff if you really think about it.
And the solution to all this?
Understand that this is the process that we go through every time we experience something in the outside world (perhaps like losing a wife), in order to make sense of it we have to filter it through our own thought patterns and our own ideas of what is wrong and what is right. Once we understand this thought process we can change it, and we can change it to do nothing.
When we truly do nothing we apply none of our own warped filters. It leaves us clean, it leaves us true and it leaves us at peace.
I can honestly say that with the power of doing nothing I am at peace.