Time is a strange thing. We know how long a minute is, and how many
minutes are in an hour, and how many hours make up a day, and yet a moment is
so intangible. Time is but a series of
moments. And moments pass at different
speeds. This year feels in some ways to
have flown by. And yet, when I survey it
as I have done recently, I can acknowledge how much has happened. How much has been achieved, and how much growth
has occurred.
I wanted to be present with
myself and to mark the day in a way that felt right for me, right now. My feelings showed me the way and guided me
as I allowed more moments to unfold, and to envelop and hold me. I felt peaceful with the reality that it was
a whole year ago that we finally said goodbye.
It was a long goodbye and, in many ways, it was last year that I was
faced with the biggest loss: the gap
between the mother had known, and the woman I went to visit in those final
months.
I was struck by the energy with
which the day met me. Having sat and
looked at some beautiful photographs of the two of us the night before, I woke
and enjoyed a morning that resembled many others: I swam.
This time I swam for her. I swam
for she who first introduced me to the water and she who nurtured my love for
the element that has become such an important part of who I am. I swam for a long time, and enjoyed each
length to the full. The sun shone
bright, and I felt bright, luxuriating in the fact that there was no goal and
no plan: I swam, and I swam, and I
swam.
The day was what it was. It was just that and it was just right. There was no plan, because these things can’t
be planned. I consulted my internal
barometer and trusted the accuracy of its reading. In so doing, it felt as though I got it just
right, and yet of course there is no right or wrong. Mourning is a process whose path can be
neither predicated nor measured. The
best way to do it, is the only way to do it:
employing all of the senses and prioritising nothing over anything.
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