HelenzArt-life-musings

Tag: beginnings

  • How that first anniversary feels.

    To be honest the firsts of anything are hard.  The first Christmas,  mothers day, fathers day, their birthday etc.  We know it’s coming and there can be a sense of dread attached to that.  We found that to do something they would have liked, or to celebrate having known them rather than think of what we have lost is better for us. Remembrances of good times. Certainly better for me, and that’s not a denial of the pain felt. That is tacitly acknowledged,  a sadness that offers gladness to have been part of their physical lives and to be better for having known them. 

    When the first anniversary of Gavins death came round, we had already made a plan. To do something most extraordinary.  To overlay that sad with very special memories of family.  We went to Finland, the family of hubby and I, our daughter with her husband and our two grandchildren.  Snow, huskies, reindeer, the whole experiences that a wonderland of snow can offer.  Did it help, absolutely yes. 

    When we meet that anniversary now it’s with those memories of family. Gavin was with us as we fell and slipped and wondered at the experiences. He was still part of it in spirit of that, I’m certain. 

    On his birthday, I recall that bond of birthing that happened as I first held him. That soul thread attachment between us, welded and melded.  I am grateful that the thread hold strong to this day.  He is part of who I am, and will remain so through this life and all transitions. 

  • Where am I going!?

    When I was made redundant from work 6 months after our son died, I was in a better position to help my husband yet I intuitively knew I wasn’t there to rescue him or divert him from his grief.  I wasn’t going to be able to drag or bully him out of his depression or helplessness or any other feeling that he was having, regardless of whether he was intent on denying them or not.   I could only help myself. To carry on embracing my emotions, and to share that, or rather my,  way of being in his environment.  To share that it’s OK to feel helpless, lost, floundering in a sea of what’s the point. 

    So, I cried when I needed to cry, and I still do that. Its not often but I do have the heaving sobs and snotty nosed cries and always feel better after.  Emotion is energy in motion, it needs to be helped in moving through.  That’s perhaps why laughter is good for you, it moves all of the body with joy. 

    Obviously I wasn’t going to hang around my hubby waiting for his next time of needed solace. So where was I going, there’s only so much busy-ness a body can do, house clean, laundry done, dogs walked etc.

    I began sitting, looking at a golden soul thread that was pulled by my sons departure. I didn’t know that I was pondering on that, but in hindsight, that’s what it was. An invitation to find a different path. To perhaps weave a different cloth in what may remain of my life.  To step out of being daughter, sister, wife, mother, all those facets that have kept me in a seeming place. Doing what I have always done, try to fit in to what I thought others wanted or needed, ‘people please’, so as to find worth from others as I had none in and of myself. Though that too is an hindsight.   How can loss shape such thoughts? Grief,  tears one apart, dismantles a lot of what one thought one knew, opens up those darkened and hidden spaces where we have hidden from ourselves.  That is an opportunity to reorganise, to fling wide the doors and windows and really have a good look into those shadows, and maybe shine a little light.  Maybe with the loss of one purpose perhaps one looks for another and at my age, the patterns can change. Survival needs change. There is a roof over head, money available, children grown.  There is less wanting to climb the social ladder,  seeing that we have enough stuff and perhaps it’s time to gather up the inner treasure and make more or better use of what is already here.

    So,  where was I going? I was going to begin finding me.