Lows and highs

Earlier this week I was going through our (still haven’t got used to saying ‘my’!) garage, which, you’ve guessed it, requires some sorting out! I actually sorted it out about two years ago, but then with all B’s medical equipment etc it became a bit of a mess again. Anyway, B had put some box files on one of the shelves in the garage when he was helping with tidying. I had assumed that they were empty, and I remember saying at the time that I thought at least some of them could be thrown away, but he thought they might come in handy(!) so they stayed on the top shelf. On Wednesday I took them down and, lo and behold, some of them were not empty! Some contained specialist graph papers, presumably to plot various astronomical entities, whilst others contained slides of graphs and various celestial bodies. What was I meant to do with all of these? Why had he left them for me to deal with? When B was alive, in the normal way of things, these may have just been dealt with, or perhaps caused an argument, but now I had to deal with them on my own and they are not mine! I presume they are worthless, they are certainly old, but I can’t throw them out without checking, so this involves taking photos, more emails, more stuff that has to sit somewhere (currently the kitchen floor!!) until I have worked out what to do with them. I have to admit, I did feel somewhat cross with B, which then, of course, upset me again. It had been a reasonable day until then.

Yesterday, I went to the hospice  (not the one that looked after B but the one I used to work at) to take some bags of rags (they sell them to make money) and some things of B’s that I didn’t want that could be sold in the hospice shops. It wasn’t a great day and I was feeling a bit low, but I decided to go anyway. Having unloaded all the stuff, I went to see if any of my ex-colleagues were around. In the end, I must have been there a couple of hours and it really helped me. Not only was it good to see everyone, but they were happy to talk about B, his illness, his dying and death, and my grief. This might sound strange, but it was so helpful and did me a power of good. They understood and they weren’t worried about talking about death and dying – why would they be, they deal with it day in, day out – and for me it was a real gift. They encouraged me to visit again and some even asked if I was going to turn this blog into a book… (probably not, but you never know!). I came away feeling uplifted. So, thank you so much, guys – you know who you are!

I have been thinking again about B’s birthday – I know it will be hard but, as I’ve already said, I want it to be a positive day and not just a sad one. I am going to visit my bubble, so that will really help, but I’ve decided that I want to do some sort of positive act, as well. I thought about letting off a balloon, but that’s not very environmentally friendly; I thought about planting some seeds, but I’m not that green-fingered; I also thought about starting a memory box, which I may do, but not at the moment. Then it came to me, I will plant a potentilla! Why (or what?), I hear you ask… It’s a sort of joke. B was unable to recognise any but the most recognisable or well-known plants. Not long after we were married we were wandering around a garden, possibly Kew, and I taught him to recognise a potentilla plant. I can’t remember why it happened to be a potentilla and I’m not sure he ever mastered it completely, but if we saw a plant and I asked him what it was, he would look at it, probably know it was likely to be a potentilla because I had asked him or possibly recognise it, and name it! So, I’ve bought the potentilla and will plant it on or near his birthday, and it will remind me of him, providing, of course, that I can keep it alive…