Was it all real?

 Somewhat surreally, and I’m aware that this might sound odd, I sometimes lose B to his life before me, and I find it hard to hang on to the time we had together. I get stuck in younger photos of him, or his first marriage, and other earlier times when I didn’t know him. These times don’t bother me, except I find a different B there, one I didn’t know, and it makes ‘my’ B seem further away. Sometimes I can grasp him, sometimes I can’t. It is very strange, particularly as we were married for 24 years! 

Sometimes, I even wonder if B really existed. There is less and less of ‘him’ around, so my brain starts to wonder if he was really here at all. He’s not here now, so was our life together real? It is very odd what new tortures one’s mind can dredge up! This is where I find that my photos of him help. I was relieved to find that I have as many as I do.B didn’t like having his picture taken and generally I took pictures of scenery rather than people, so this really didn’t really bode well but I have more than I thought I would have, and for this I am thankful. They not only remind me of him but of the happy times we shared, and this helps to make things real again. I sometimes wish I had a video of him, but I know B would have hated that (I do have the BBC one with him narrating, but it is not the same!).

These surreal thoughts make me go back to the poem that was read at the Service of Thanksgiving for B, When Great Trees Fall by Maya Angelou. This poem expresses so much of my experience thus far, and I reassure myself that B did exist, and that I am, and can be, better because of that.

 

When Great Trees Fall - by Maya Angelou
When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.

When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.

Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance, fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance of
dark, cold
caves.

And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.

                   -----------

Now for an update on yesterday, B’s birthday. I planted the potentilla. I visited the crematorium where B’s ashes were scattered and it was sunny, beautiful and peaceful, and I was able to feel at peace. Later I shared in the birthday of a granddaughter of my bubble friends. I did feel sad to be singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to someone other than B but I was glad to share in the celebrations. It was a happy and positive occasion and I'm glad I could be a part of it. I admit that I did have a cry when I got in, but that was okay, I hadn't cried before that! If I had been on my own I would probably have brooded all day. So, all in all, it was an intense, but good day.