Tonight and yesterday

Tonight we will eat and drink

to remember and honour,

kissing each other on the cheek,

checking in my eyes

to see if I'm OK.

We'll make good conversation

and admire the children,

and catch glimpses of another face in theirs

and wish, wish that there was

another chair full.

How different to the other kind

of remembering, just yesterday,

stretched out flat

on a rectangle piece of grass

dropping tears down to bones,

cracking the blue sky

with the sound of a pain

that time doesn't take,

and asking him to make sure

that he's the first one there to meet me

when I arrive.

Thank you, my dear friends...

'If you're brave enough to live it, the least I can do is listen.'

- Cynthia Bond,

If I hadn't seen such riches

"Now I'm relieved to hear
That you've been to some far out places
It's hard to carry on
When you feel all alone
Now I've swung back down again
It's worse than it was before
If I hadn't seen such riches
I could live with being poor
Oh sit down
Sit down next to me
Sit down, down, down, down, down
In sympathy"

Stone and Harris

The crying

I said once that the crying is not for writing about.

But it is part of the story, of course. Now that this event is behind me, I feel comfortable sharing this piece, and I feel that the whole story must be told. Written in my journal in January 2013. 

This is the core of my grief. 


I'm lying on the floor on my side, my knees pulled up to my chest and my glasses on the carpet beside me. Tears and sobs flood my body, and the room is filled with the sound of pain. For a long time the world around me disappears. I sit up, and for the first time in a year of crying, nearly vomit.

I need company. Real company with breath and skin. I sit beside her cot, lean my head on the rails and reach through to feel her little body rising and falling. She stirs, and relief comes as her arm stretches out towards me. I reach down and hold her hand. No, actually - she holds mine.

Sweet relief

I thought I'd be alright you know. I'm only on a half dose, and while it seems to have made a difference, surely coming off them for a while to see how it goes wouldn't be too big a deal. When I went on them I was selling my home and hadn't found a new one, and I was pretty down about that, along with everything else. Now we have a very happy home and I am finding a little more in my life.

But just three drug-free days found me wretched and sobbing on the floor, the little guy crying nearby, the little girl crouching down quietly next to me, stroking and stroking my arm, retrieving my abandoned glasses unbidden, and putting them silently within my reach. Making me better.

I may not have found my sanity in that unbearable few days, but I did find, once again, a most extraordinary heart. A sweet little mouse with a lion's heart, bursting with love, concern, tenderness. Sometimes, knowing that she is here with me, and will be here with me, is such relief.

17 January, again.

I went to the cemetery on my own today, which is how I wanted it. It was hard, hard, hard, and again I am amazed at what a powerful place it is, and what can happen there that can be kept tucked away in other places. 

These days the pain has stayed tucked away a lot - something I have been thinking about and may write about some more. But as so often happens, the longer you go without letting it out, the bigger the hurt when it comes. It seems I am not the only one to know this.

There were no photos there today, but we did take a few when we visited on Christmas Eve. 

It's always hard to know what to do on these days. It seems that when I don't know what to do, I bake, and so, as has happened before, we made a cake for Daddy. We're working on commemoration vs celebration - cakes are a little confusing I admit, and today I was asked, 'will we be singing Happy Birthday?" We didn't do that, but we did sing, and light candles, and held on tight. I have loved those kids even more today. 

The little guy spent much of the day doing jobs-around-the house with Grandad while the girls spent some of it baking a cake together. It seems that those of us who are alive, the best way to survive is to get on and do the things you love. We'll have to keep trying that.

This girl has a cake instead of a father. Good grief.

 

 

 

Flowers from a friend whose heartache kept mine company today.

These have been my songs, and words (excerpts), for today. Turned up really loud they are hard to drive to, but they speak the pain.  Click on the titles to listen.

All by Brooke Fraser.

Flags

Reality has left you reeling

All facts and no feeling

No faith and all fear

I don't know why a good man will fall 

While a wicked one stands

I don't know why the innocents fall

While the monsters still stand

You who mourn will be comforted

You who hunger will hunger no more

All the last shall be first

Of this I am sure

You who weep now will laugh again

All you lonely be lonely no more

Yes the last shall be first

Of this I am sure

Orphans, Kingdoms

Eat and drink for tomorrow we die,

We will look our Maker in the eye.

Raise a flagon and drink to your health,

Who is He that can conquer Himself?

Ice on her Lashes

I will think of you each time I see the sun

I didn't want a day without

but somehow I've lived through another one

I will think of you each time I see the sun

I didn't want a year without you

but somehow I've lived through another one

Did you find it hard to breathe at first?

Were you wounded and in disbelief at how much it hurt?

Now the ache's still burning

but the world's still turning, isn't it?

I will think of you each time I see the sun

I didn't want a life without you

but here I am living one

Young widow grieves for her fallen husband, Albuquerque, NM

Our babies, up the path from Woodward Street

Me: "Look at them, just look at them!"

"I look at them every day."