Eclipsed (again) by the Shock and the Horror
May 11, 2024 No Comments5th November 2018 When… When will I really “get” that Mike is dead? When will the knowing finally sink in? When will the remembering not punch me full force in the gut? As if I didn’t already know. When will the pavement not open up with a chasmic (?) hole as I wander innocently about […]
Read MoreAirports are Emotional Places
May 11, 2024 No CommentsMain photo credit Sarah Treanor (streanor.com) 1st November 2018 – All Saints’ Day. (Where have all the saints gone? Can someone send a few my way please?) I feel like I am rapidly becoming some version of Tom Hanks in “The Terminal”, stuck in the “airport system”, being shunted around from Boarding Gate to Transfer/Service […]
Read MoreDespite all my efforting, he’s still dead
May 11, 2024 1 Commentmain photo credits Sarah Treanor streanor.com 29th October 2018 One day last week, I think it was Thursday, I was going through piles of paperwork at home at the kitchen table. Sophia, my new LIPSY (live-in pet sitter) was doing some of her own work at the kitchen table too. Round and round I was […]
Read MoreSilent Celebrations
May 11, 2024 No Comments27 October 2018 I just looked up the definition of the word “Celebration”, not because I don’t know what it means, but because its common, everyday use, seems inadequate. Inadequate in my current life. “The action of celebrating an important day or event”. Also, “A social gathering or enjoyable activity held to celebrate something”. At […]
Read MoreWidow Walking in Wild Weather
May 11, 2024 6 Comments23 September 2018 I wrote a couple of weeks ago about not recognising my life. Since then I have hiked for 12 big fat full days up and down Corsican mountains on the “GR20 mythique”. Considered to be the hardest of the French Grandes Randonnées, at 180 km in length and over 10,000 m of […]
Read MoreI Don’t Recognise My Life
May 11, 2024 No Comments7th September 2018 There are films about people who go to sleep and wake up remembering nothing; or people who go into hospital for surgery and awaken in someone else’s life. They have lost all sense of who they are, who their relationships are with, what they do…. A terrifyingly fearful void where all of […]
Read MoreA big week made bigger
May 11, 2024 1 Comment1st September 2018 It’s Saturday morning and I am sitting in bed – with the dog. In my new life, this is one of my favourite times of day. That, and going to bed. There’s something about bed there, being in bed. A bed theme. I know some widows who intensely dislike, even fear, the […]
Read MoreEmma of 500 Days – And other stories of numbers and dates
May 11, 2024 1 Comment20th August 2018 Today is my brother William’s birthday. He is 53. The age Mike was when he died. I wonder if people like my brother, turning 53, think that they might die at 53? I suspect not. Though perhaps maybe more likely if they are spending part of their birthday in a hospital. As […]
Read MoreA Holiday Chock Full of Gifts
May 11, 2024 2 Comments14th August 2018 Back in January this year, for better or for worse, I acquiesced to (i.e., crumbled under) my girls’ insistent requests to visit the US for summer holidays. (I don’t mention Ben in this because Ben was travelling in Latin America for months at that time, and more to the point, doesn’t weigh […]
Read MoreYou’re So Strong!
May 11, 2024 No Commentsphoto credit Sarah Treanor www.streanor.com 6th August 2018 I fancy a series of blogposts on platitudes and statements that really are not compliments, not helpful to a grieving person. Or at least to me. There are so many phrases that I hear that make me want to snarl. And sometimes I bite. Whether or not […]
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