The New Year and looking to the future...

It's a new year, and I guess that that makes us look to the future. As B was older than me, I knew it was likely that, at some point, unless something happened to me, there would come a time when I would be without him. Over the last year, I have been aware of people my age who have lost their partner expressing their loss not just of their partner but of their shared future. I kept thinking that this didn’t really apply to me, as I knew the likelihood of being on my own again was high but, actually, I was wrong, as I realise it does apply to me. I didn’t imagine how different my life was / is going to be without B and I do grieve the future without him, all those things I won’t have with him again: just being a couple, and all that means; another holiday together, and planning what we would do; visiting family and friends together; going to exhibitions together and sharing what we each like or dislike; going out for a meal together; making decisions about the house and garden; and so on. So, yes, my future is very different now, and I have to find my way forward on my own...

Some of the groups I belong to on Facebook are groups to do with the Lake District. The people in these groups share many delightful photos of the Cumbrian landscape, as well as details of walks they have undertaken. These pictures are both beautiful and interesting in their own right, but for me they also bring back many happy memories of holidays that B and I shared walking the fells. As I look at scenes I recognise, and fells I’ve climbed, I feel some measure of joy.

There was one picture recently that moved me to tears. Not because of its beauty, although it is very beautiful, but because of what it represented for me. It was taken by Hayley Holloway, who said “I’m now unemployed … and I have zero idea what I’m going to do next other than walk the hills, swim in the lakes, and of course, take copious amounts of photos… I’d say this shot I took… at Sunny Bank Jetty in Coniston accurately captures the future. And I couldn’t be happier. Time to take a leap of faith…”. 

Hayley has given me permission to share her picture.

My circumstances are very different to Hayley’s and I found her picture very emotive, as what I first saw when I looked at it was an empty future. I realised that this is what my future feels like at the moment: a walk along a jetty, alone, with cold, deep water either side, seemingly leading to nowhere. I also have a memory of B and I standing on similar jetty on Lake Coniston, back in the late 1980’s, and so that lends additional poignancy to the image. I guess all our futures are unknown, but the difference now, for me, is that I am no longer sharing mine with B. When I looked more closely at Hayley’s photograph, though, I noticed all the different colours in it. There are blues, shades of pink and purple, and even some turquoise. It also gets lighter towards the end of the jetty. So, although my first reaction was to see the emptiness, I also see that there is hope and beauty there as well. I have to remind myself that the future, my future, is not empty, even though it's enshrouded in mist. I’m not able to echo Hayley’s words about not being happier and taking a leap of faith, I didn't have a choice, but I will continue to put one foot in front of the other and walk towards the light and hopefully, in the not too distant future, find happiness, again.

In a similar vein, this reminded me of a quote that the person who gave me my first diary wrote inside the cover page:

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:

"Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown".

And he replied:

"Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.

That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way".

It goes onto say:

So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.

And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.     (Minnie Louise Haskins)

So, it remains dark, but now and again there are longer glimpses of the light, and I try not to feel guilty when I feel happy. For some unexpected reason, though, I found New Year’s Eve evening really hard. I hadn’t anticipated feeling like this – I thought Christmas would be harder, so I guess I was lulled into a false sense of security! I kept getting flashbacks of that time last year, of B lying in bed in our front room with me looking out of the window, describing the fireworks and telling him what was happening. For a few moments, when I walked into the front room, I was back in our ‘sick room’, with all that that meant - that hasn’t happened before, I've just felt pleased that that was where B was able to die. And then I kept thinking, ‘2022 will be my first year without B in it’... Oh dear, I had thought these very dark moments had passed, but seemingly not! On New Year’s Day, I watched the funeral of Desmond Tutu. In many ways it seemed an appropriate way to start the year, to acknowledge that grief is a part of life. Afterwards, I listened to the New Year’s concert, something B and I usually did. The music cheered my spirits somewhat, and the pictures reminded me of the holiday B and I spent in Vienna, and the happy times we had there. Sadness and happiness sitting together.

So, I come to this new year and I continue to walk forward hoping, knowing (?), it will get lighter, but perhaps just not quite as quickly as I would like…

I wish all my readers best wishes for 2022, and hoping you will find some measure of joy and light.