I am here to share my journey of grief and bereavement following the loss of my beloved husband. A friend suggested that a good way to focus my mind and channel my thoughts was to write them down, so I made a start at keeping a journal, recording my emotions, daily thoughts, how others were with me, my own behaviours including rituals, habits and general activities. However, I have never been good at keeping a diary and found if I missed recording something this added to my anxiety. So, I have changed the process of recording my life and will reflect on my situation in the form of this blog. I hope this way of mulling over my newly enforced life will be a more therapeutic process for me and if anyone who reads my personal day to day thoughts relates or gains comfort from them, that will also be of great comfort to me, knowing I may have helped in some small way.
A Simple 'Hello'
One recent event, a very mundane, everyday occurrence, which happens to everyone every day, all day long, became my significant turning point, it sparked inside me and made me decide I needed to write, not just a diary or a journal, but in a much more meaningful way. I had such a huge reaction to it, it has resulted in me writing here and now, and for many months to come. So what was it that happened? What caused this?
I was on my way to the supermarket, early last Sunday morning. I was at the end of my street and walked past a familiar face. "Hello", she said, I looked and replied, "Hello". That was it. Little did she know the extreme effect her greeting would have. I knew the lady, in the life I had before caring for my husband I would see her several times a week. she lives in the block next to ours and we would acknowledge each other with a hello but never any further conversation, she, or I, were always on our way somewhere, each just being civilly polite to a familiar person. When I was going somewhere with my husband, walking along our street together or waiting for a taxi outside our flat, I know that we never saw her. She never saw us together so she never knew he existed at all. So on Sunday morning when she said hello and went on her way suddenly my insides started to churn. I was screaming inside my head, I wanted her to be my audience, let me talk about him, tell of our happy times and of the story of his illness and how I eventually lost him. To me it was not fair that she went on to continue her morning tasks. Why did she not stop. The answer is she has a life to live and she knows nothing about him. I was hurting by now. This is how my life is, I have all of this story to tell and the world just keeps going on as normal round about me. For me this is wrong, the world needs to stop. But it can't and it never will. I too continued on with my journey to the supermarket, completed my shopping and made my way home. All the time my mind had become a whirlpool, memories and emotions swimming through my mind, growing at such a rate causing such extreme turbulence inside me. I got home and put pen to paper. Several pages written down I couldn't possibly write fast enough. Some of my thoughts had metamorphosed into a galaxy of sparks of thought, each with a constellation of feelings and thoughts. I finished recording as many of them as I could and rested from my inner exhaustion. The thoughts are still inside me, the sparks happen all day long, the mixture of emotions can be overwhelming. I talk to him all day long. I have told him I am now channelling this maelstrom and trying my best to put it into a cohesive form. Hence my new blog.
To be continued...
I hope to organise these ideas and analyse what is going on in my life after him. It is a difficult and complex thing but if I succeed I hope it will be therapeutic, I hope I can help some others on my journey too. If you can empathise with anything I really hope that as you accompany me on my journey it might help in some small way.