The Reward is the Journey

I wake up.  It's Saturday.  And she's not here to share the weekend that has yet to happen. This is now a familiar tape that has been playing out most weekends since September.  There have, of course, been exceptions.  The weekends that I've been away.  Those weekends on which I've had work commitments which have taken me out of London.  The break I spent on the other side of the world over New Year.  These times have felt different.  Saturday mornings in London don't yet feel quite right. Something occurs to me.  I think to call her.  I reach for my phone, but before I do, I remember.  Again.  And again.  Her number is no longer available.   I am briefly and repeatedly disorientated.  It feels unfair.  It isn't.  Life isn't.   I am adjusting.  Grief is a process.  A process that is unfolding.  Sometimes quickly.  Often slowly.  I have no say as to its pace...

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. ...

Saying goodbye is, I have learnt, not an event but a process.  It cannot be rushed, and happens in a timescale that cannot be controlled.  We let go of anything, only when we are entirely ready.  Saying goodbye is no different.   I have, I realise, been saying goodbye in waves.  I have gone through several important phases:  each of them non negotiable.  Indescribable, intangible, every one has been inescapable.  I have endured the sense of loss imprinted on me, in a way I see now I carry far more easily. Until we are able to wear our loss, we are incapable of shedding it.  We shed loss only when we are ready to be without it.  By which time it has carried us, and transformed us.  We are ready to move forward.  We may, once again, live on.   You can shed tears that she is gone or you can smile because she has lived. You can close your eyes and pray that she’ll come back or you can open your eyes...

As another month passes, I notice how my mind seeks to organise itself around the grief I will doubtless remain conscious of for a long time yet. It comes and goes, ebbing and flowing. Arising sometimes predictably and at other times, quite without warning. These days, it is a gentle sadness. A recognition that she is no longer. That we will never again greet one another in that old, familiar way.  Life, of course, continues. Change envelops me. And my mind does its best to keep up. My mind, I can now see, is working over time to ensure I stay alive - not in the physical sense, but at an emotional level. My mind is capable of keeping me on track and does this by organising my thoughts now that the shock has subsided and I adjust to the reality of my loss. I no longer think about her morning, noon and night. I recall memories at will, and am pleased to do so. They give me comfort. I am haunted no more. The way the mind manages grief over time means that w...

It has been a very strange year.  Everything has changed.  Keeping up with the changes was the challenge.  And, somehow, I feel I managed that.   There is something about the work I do and the way I approach it that means I am constantly reminded of the inevitability of change.  I have the privilege of being able to watch people change before my very eyes.   Sometimes I see the changes before they do.  Which is a second privilege:  I get to share this with them by reflecting what I see. The last year has enabled me to see very clearly this process working in reverse.  Those around me have gently reflected back to me all that has gone on and the height of the hurdles I have encountered along the way.   We needed to move quickly.  There wasn't much space at that point to take time to reflect:  we were in it and that was exactly where we needed to be.  Now there really is no rush:  all is exactly as ...

There is a sudden surreal realisation that life has gone on  with little notice of how your life has been forever altered. John Pete Time moves, and passes.  Things settle, and change.  I feel as though the change has been taking place somewhere deep within me.  I have a shifted outlook.  My reality has altered.  Profoundly.  And with it, my perspective is somehow different. The capacity to grieve is as much a part of us as the capacity to love. These changes are hard to pinpoint.  They are intangible, yet perceptible each and every moment that I choose to 'tune in'.  I have a different 'take' on the loss.  It is somehow no longer so immediate, or raw, yet always close by. Each person's grief journey is as individual as a fingerprint or a snowflake.   Earl Grollman I carry it with me, but have found a way of holding it close without feeling consumed or restricted by it.  Like the many little t...