Tag: wedding anniversary

TRANSCRIPT:
Hello, and welcome to a video from me, Mark at Lost Without Her. It’s been quite some considerable time since I posted a video. And as ever these are motivated or stimulated by conversations that I have with other people.

I saw a post the other day on one of the widows and widowers forums about wedding anniversaries and celebrating, if that’s the right word, but thinking about our wedding anniversaries. And I know from my perspective, that our wedding anniversary was a day that I found immensely difficult after Claire had died, because that was the one day in the year which was uniquely ours.

Her birthday was, Claire’s birthday, my birthday, was my birthday, we may have done different things on those days but our wedding anniversary was a day that was us, we, together. So those wedding anniversaries after she died were so difficult to deal with.

I saw someone on one of these forums saying, “It’s my wedding anniversary coming up, I just don’t know how I’m going to cope. This is awful, this happens every year and I can’t celebrate it anymore.” And this just brought to mind for me, the book, The Power Of Now by Eckhart Tolle, I really strongly recommend you read it. He talks about living in the now, in the moment.

We only have stress and problems in the now, when we compare it to the past or when we compare to the future. And the past is just a series of encoded messages that we’ve got in our brain, we’ve deleted, distorted, generalized things that we’ve had in the past, and we may not actually remember the exact things as they were. So we’ve just got this kind of distorted memory in our brain, we remember what we kind of want to remember. And the future hasn’t happened yet, we’re just creating a future in our mind.

So the past is in our mind and the future is in our mind. And when we consider the now, the past and the future, if we don’t compare them to now, they disappear, we can have a truly good experience – now.

I want you to think about your wedding anniversary, that if I think about my wedding anniversary and I take myself back to that day, and if you do this now, see what you saw, hear what you heard and feel those emotions of being in that day.

It feels fabulous, it feels amazing.

It’s beautiful, it’s wonderful.

It’s such a good feeling.

And feeling that is like living in the now, but as it was for me 29 years ago.

And as I remember that day, it only becomes difficult if I compare to what is going on at this moment.

If I go back to that day and imagine, Oh yes, well, Claire’s going to die in 25 years from now, how horrible. Yes, my memory, my living that experience of that day, gets destroyed, gets upset.

But if I just celebrate that day for being in that day, everything that it brought me, all the wondrous feelings and emotions, it’s beautiful.

And that’s what I challenge you to do.

If your wedding anniversary is coming up, remember that day, that beautiful wondrous day and celebrate that day in the context of that day with all the emotions in that day.

And then you may decide to come back to now and experience a completely different world to the one you thought, but when you celebrate your wedding anniversary, truly celebrate it without connecting it to your past or future.

And this is the power of now.

I made it through today… our 22nd wedding anniversary. It’s been an odd day, I’ve not really spoken to many people but those that I did didn’t mention that it was our anniversary. I guess it’s tough for people, no-one really knows what to say, and I respect that.

I was having an SMS conversation with one friend who did indeed say happy anniversary in the message – and you know what I was OK with it, she knows about Claire and I’m actually very touched that she felt she could say that to me, it is my anniversary today and it always will be.

Of course it was a sad day, yes I’ve welled up quite a few times but it’s not been a dark day… just sad, but acceptable sad… almost positive sad… is that possible?

I really am so thankful for the years we spent together, it’s true that some people search a life time for what we had, and I am truly thankful that I found such amazing love and managed to share those 22 years with Claire.

Someone sent me this earlier on today – it sums up how I feel so well.

The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours.

The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.
A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause.
For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.