Remembering

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I don’t quite know where to start this post. In many ways it has been a good week, but it has also been a hard week. And, strangely, my body seems to know that. I have, again, twice, fallen asleep with the light still on, and towards the end of the week I have been waking up at 4.30 am. It seems odd that, after my sleeping pattern was improving, when I most need strength my body seems to deny it, but there it is!

Anyway, I joined the Service of Reflection on Tuesday, All Souls’ Day, and cried, but the service was good. It felt as though my grief was acknowledged. I had ‘permission’ to remember and honour B, and I could also remember others – all those who mourn, in far worse circumstances than mine, and those in our world who live with war, climate change, disease, and so forth, and whose hopes have been crushed.

We had an enjoyable Home Group social evening. I most missed B when everybody had left and when, ordinarily, we would have been clearing up together, but it was a good evening and another ‘first’ was got through.

The hardest day, of course, was the funeral of my friend. Up until the day of the funeral, I had felt rather numb and not really able to mourn his death on top of B’s, but on Friday I felt that I was able to grieve for him, although, of course, I was also grieving for B. But it was a day of remembering happier times, as well as a day of sorrow. It was good to remember all the connections built up over the years and to be able to celebrate those, whilst also saying ‘goodbye’. Once or twice, the thought did pop into my mind that B should be here with me, mourning his friend, as our friend had done for him, and I know if B had not died first, he would have been… sometimes the mind does come up with the strangest thoughts…

As often is the case, it was the music that ‘got’ me. At one point, we sang ‘Great is Thy Faithfulness’ a good, rousing hymn. In the last verse, though, there is a line ‘Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow’, but I cannot sing the second part of this yet. I definitely need ‘strength for today’ but to sing of a bright hope for tomorrow just seems a step too far.

So, I’ve fallen off my plateau (again) and tears have been shed, but I have remembered, mourned and celebrated. And I do have hope for the future somewhere deep within me, even though I can’t sing about it yet…

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