The Grieving Jester

Well, I’m not letting her have the last word! She’s managing quite well, and perhaps she more often seems like her old self, but she is a changed person and underneath it all she is still grieving. I still make some days quite tough for her. Mostly, though, I just sit in the background and she thinks that she knows how to live with me, and she can and does think about living the rest of her life, but I can still needle her. I mostly use different tactics now – after all, I have to remind her that she’s not finished with me, even though she would like to be – and I make her realise that her emotional resilience is still quite low (what an understatement!). If she gets stressed, I just poke at the pain deep within her and I can soon overwhelm her. She has come a long way, but she’s still got a way to go. If you think about it, it’s still early days for her; she’s only known me for eighteen months or so, whereas she and B had been together for twenty-four years and more. You’ll be ple...

More to the point, B married me, and for that I am so very thankful. He and I were, perhaps, an unlikely couple, not only because of our ages but because we were different in so many ways, but we had a good marriage, an imperfect but happy and enriching twenty-four years, till death did us part. Both of our lives were changed forever when we became friends, and then more than friends, and for that I shall be eternally thankful. Now I am endeavouring to live the rest of my life without him, and to live it to the full as he would want me to. I hope I can live up to that challenge. Just as our marriage passed from that initial buzz to contented everyday life (and none the worse because of that – better even), my grief has passed from that initial state of desolation to a more familiar companion. In many ways it is, now, more 'everyday', except that that perhaps suggests that it is comfortable, whereas it can, and still does, put me through the wringer. That Jester, grief, remain...

Well, last week felt a bit bumpy. There were some good times, but at the low points, it sometimes felt as though I was smiling on the outside, whilst crying on the inside. Don't get me wrong, I can, now, just feel happy and that is lovely, but it also feels much harder to let people know when my grief is weighing me down (except when it spurts out of its own accord!), despite the fact that I promised myself that I would be honest. Knowing this is quite common in the second year is good to know, but it doesn’t really help! There’s still this dialogue that runs through my head: ' They're going to get fed-up with me', 'Why do I still feel like this?', ‘How will they react if I tell them?’, 'Why can't I manage my feelings better?', etc. I recently read an article that suggested when somebody asks how you are the best response is to say 'I'm fine', the rationale being that, if you keep saying it, it will help to achieve it. I can see the logi...