Dual personalities

Last week I went away for a few days, and it was lovely. I went with my friends with whom I bubble and we stayed in a small village in Gloucestershire. We walked in the countryside, we visited a couple of gardens and we even went into a couple of shops. I missed B, but I enjoyed myself. Of course, there were one or two moments, such as on the first evening when I thought I would phone him to tell him how I was getting on (!), as we usually did when one of us was away; or walking in the Gloucestershire countryside and thinking how much he would have enjoyed it. On the positive side, though, it also brought back some happy memories and I was able to share these, and talk about him, which was lovely. I am so grateful to my bubble friends. It almost felt as though I had turned a corner, but now I am home the full force of his death has hit me again. He is not here. And I cry. I’m trying to keep myself occupied, it does help, so I have been doing some more sorting out, as well as other odd jobs, and this allows me to focus on something else for a while. My head tells me that B wouldn’t want me to be unhappy and that it’s ok to try to move on, whilst my heart just aches for him.  It’s like I am two people: one that can sometimes be happy and live in the moment, whilst the second pines for the past and what was; one that knows it’s alright to move forward whilst the other doesn’t want to, or can’t, let go. I know this will change, and that it’s only three months since B died (although in some ways it feels like a lifetime since he was here), but at the moment it’s a struggle.

Recently, a friend sent me an anthology of grief called ‘All in the End is Harvest’ and in it there is a piece by Mary Stott that really resonated with me. Stott recognises the dichotomy between the ‘carefully maintained façade’ that the bereaved can present and the emptiness that is to be found behind that façade. I don’t think I’ve quite achieved that façade yet (!!) but the picture Stott paints is reassuring – I’m not the only one to feel like this. Her piece starts by saying “…we who have words can articulate grief for those who have not, and that to have that grief spelt out, its pattern charted, is something we all obscurely need…”.  I guess that is what I feel about my blog, it’s about me mapping my grief, and somehow that helps me, but I hope it helps others too.  

Moving on, next week is B’s birthday. In many ways it’s just another day, except of course it’s another first, another hurdle to jump and it looms large. I am not looking forward to it. At the moment, the thought of it just makes me want to cry but, as mentioned previously, before he died B told me that he was thankful that he had had a long and happy life, and for this I am grateful, so I shall try to make his birthday a day to celebrate rather than be sad. I’ll let you know if I succeed.

(All in the End is Harvest, 2017, 26th reprinting, Ed. A Whitaker; Darton, Longman and Todd)