Tag: Mum
Loss of Love
Loss of Love
Whilst driving the other day I had a realisation. I’m not loved any more!
I’m not saying that no-one loves me, it’s just that I’m not loved in a husband/wife way any more.
I had a long chat with 2 of the kids last night about Claire (To. and M.) – they too are feeling it… they aren’t loved in a motherly way any more.
I guess we all feel that ‘loss of love’ in a different way, the love of a Sister, a Daughter, a Mum, a Wife or a Friend. And that love that’s missing can never be replaced because it goes deeper than the specific role.. it was the unique and special kind of love that Claire gave to her husband, wife, children, sister and friends. And that love can never be replaced.
Life does feel empty without that love, it really does.
Coaching mode engage!
What does that love get for ME?
It’s that sense of warmth, that spreads out and surrounds me, like putting on a really thick woolly jumper in the middle of a cold dark night.
That warmth of lying in a steaming hot bath and feeling the stress soak and relax away in to the water.
That warmth of a huge hug from the person you desperately love.
And once again as I think about it now, the picture of an island all alone and stranded comes to mind. Yet that same island is surrounded by the warm and relaxing sea that Claire loved so much.
I’m going to buy a big picture of an island and hang it on the wall, it’ll remind me of that love each time I walk past it.
Love isn’t something that emanates in a physical sense from another person, if it were then we wouldn’t feel loved when they left the room. Love is something that endures in the absence of that person… so if that’s true I am loved by a wife and the kids are loved by a mum – we just are!
Is The Present Tense Right?
Is The Present Tense Right?
last night was really tough. The kids didn’t want Claire to be at the funeral in just a gown, they wanted her to be clothed in her own clothes and wearing her jewellery – so we spent the evening finding something appropriate that they were all happy with.
At the end of it, whilst it was just a pile of clothes, jewellery, her glasses and a watch, it seemed all too real. It seemed as though we had tried to reconstruct Claire in a very personal way.
The part I found the hardest was that each of the 4 kids have written a letter to their Mum that they want to read out at the funeral on Friday, they all made me cry. But what really made me cry was that they wanted a copy of those letters to go in the casket with Claire as their final notes to her, preferably clasped in her hands – oh man did I blub!
The one and only reason I’m writing this down is to resolve it in my mind. To articulate it and make sense of it.
It’s not the loss of Claire that got me last night, it was the love that the kids were showing – a motherly love that can no longer be requited.
We talked about whether they should phrase their tribute in the past or present tense. ” I loved my Mum” seems like it has stopped, and it hasn’t.
We also realised that their mother is not the flesh and bones in that casket, Claire was more than that – she was WAY more than that – no really, Claire was way, way, way more than just flesh and bones – she truly touched out hearts.
And ALL that she was still IS and can never die – the present tense is absolutely right – they love her, she IS their Mum and she DOES live on in our hearts.