Thursday, February 28, 2013

Grieving again

I've been quite miserable recently.  Really miserable in fact.
Miserable enough to sit on the floor and cry with my goat. (He's wooden.  He rocks.  Literally, and figuratively.)





See.  He's a goat.  He rocks.

Anyway.  (Look at me avoiding talking about it all.  I'm so....... 'brave'?)

I've been feeling miserable.  It culminated on Wednesday when I sat on the floor of my bedroom and bawled my eyes out for a good hour. Part of it has come from reading someone else's blog, and recognising those feelings in myself, and thinking that I probably should have faced these a long time ago as opposed to now, 3 years later. (Or 3 years 7 months and 13 days later, but who is counting?)

I've been readings, as many people have, life as a widower which is the blog of a chap who lost his wife suddenly, leaving him with a small child.  He's directing his grief through writing this blog, and he records how he feels.  Recently, two posts have really struck a chord with me.

One is about his Old Life which talks about how the life he had before the death is so different to the life he has now.  How it's his old life, and he can't get it back.  I felt like that and sometimes still do, partly because of the second post that really kicked me in the stomach when I read it.  Grieving nothing is a post that talks about how he is grieving for someone who never existed - the second child they were going to have.

I know that feeling.  As my body clock ticks through 38, as it heads into what I think might turn out to be early menopause, I am thinking more and more about the babies that Rich and I lost, the babies that I will never hold and watch grow, the people they will never be.  I'm thinking more about how the AC will not have brothers and sisters to lean on the way that I have - that he faces our deaths alone.  I know that's the paranoid part of me - he will hopefully be married and have a brood of his own by then, but in terms of understanding his loss, he'll be alone.  J doesn't want any more children.  He loves T-Boy and he loves the AC, and I love the way that AC is prepared to lose it all again by loving someone again.

When I was younger, I wanted a few things - none of them impossible.  I wanted a firm marriage, a big family of 5 or 6 or so, and my Masters of Education.  The reality, 20 years later, is that I am divorced twice, and that my fiance died before we could get married.  I have one son, and an apparent inability to carry past about 8 weeks.  I've just thrown out all my first year M.Ed stuff, because I cannot afford to continue it, in either time or money.  If I look at the shiny side, and believe me, I am trying, then I know I have a fantastic relationship with J, a beautiful and hardworking son, and a Bachelor level education which means I can do a job that I love.

But I still have spent a week grieving for that which I do not have, because now I've realised that I never will.  I'll be lucky to make a 40yr anniversary, let alone the Golden wedding of my grandparents.  I'm too old to have more children now, and to give them the life that they should have.  I couldn't take 2 years out as I did with the AC.  The chances of me ever being able to afford my Masters or Doctorate are incredibly slim now.

I think that this is a natural process though.  I didn't just lose Rich, I lost all that went with him - the family we were trying for, the relationship years that we already had, the traditions that we had.

Never mind hey.  Itwillallbefine.  I know it.  And it is.  Absolutely most of the time it so is.  The rest is just the process that has to be gone through.

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Wednesday Words

For today's Wednesday Words, I have chosen some classic Milligan.


”Crazy


I like Spike Milligan.  He was a very capable poet, comedian and writer.  He had a tremendous sense of humour and didn't take himself too seriously, as can be seen from his epigraph.

He also wrote some very good, very short poems. (He wrote some very good, very long poems too!)

For example....

There's holes in the sky
Where the rain comes in.
But they are ever so small
That's why rain is thin.

and...

I must go down to the seas again
To the lonely sea and the sky.
I left my socks and shoes there
I wonder if they're dry?

Which is clearly a take on next weeks poem!  So there's a clue for you!

What will it be? Leave me a comment if you think you know - it's one of my favourite poems ever.

Much love needs to go to crazywithtwins, the immensely clever lady invented Wednesday Words, and who is still acting like a Twilight extra, and should she continue, I think I shall inform Equity......

Monday, February 25, 2013

Peace and Quiet and growing up.

It has been a lovely half term.

AC and I have been on our own for most of it. We've been out for lunch together, been swimming together, put new curtains in the camper together, played together, and watched tv together. We've chilled out, together. It's been lovely.

I have cherished this holiday, because even though there is another one in 4 weeks and 3 days time, this could be the last one where he wants to be with me like that. He is 9. He is growing up in so many ways. I hope there are many more holidays like this to come, but even now there are flashes of teenage hormones, flickers of a 'no' and an establishing of his own strengths and personality. It is a kind, generous and loving personality, and although there are areas in which he struggles, and in which he will always struggle, I know that he will be a kind, generous and loving adult.

 He is becoming more like J every day. He still has so many mannerisms and elements of Rich in him. He is his fathers son, and he is my son. Physically, he looks like me - the same grey green eyes and the same sandy hair, and apparently the same smile. He jokes and plays like J does - poking, joking, same verbal responses to things. He rides his bike like Rich used to, he runs his hand through his hair like Rich used to (when it's long enough!) and he laughs in the same way, and one of my cooks at school once remarked on how much they looked alike, and there are things that I know, that are there. He wrinkles his eyebrows like his father does, and points at things in the same way. He loves like I do, widely, and with faith. He believes in the same faith as Rich did, he said, and has every intention of following a druidic way of life when he is grown. He wants to be an armourer like Rich and J, but also to work in the model shop like J does. (I suppose now, that's like J and his father do.) He is a product of all of us. He is the outcome of lots of loving, lots of prayer and faith of different kinds, of all of us denying ourselves in some way, even if it is just being rude about one another in front of him, or allowing him to choose where he wants to be some weekends, and not taking it personally when he doesn't choose us.

Right now, he is asleep. He has a new snake - a large corn snake called Charlie. He wrapped his arms around me last night and whispered "I love you and I love J." I told him to tell J, and this time he did. He was over the moon not to have an empty viv in his room any more, and for it to be a larger snake that he could hold. He loves Kevin sleeping on his bed as 'his' cat. All these things are an example of an inner strength that we have all tried to help him find, a way over the emotional pain of losing Rich, Joe-the-fat-cat, and the insanity of the Cali-King snake.

We've all tried to teach him to be his own person, and to accept that pain happens, but it is what we do with it that makes us who we are. We've tried to show him in the way we live our lives.

"Mummy and Daddy don't live together any more, but we can still be friends."
"Rich died, and we love him, and it hurts, but we can love again, differently, and build on what we have."
"Joe had to be put down, because he was dying and in pain, and that hurt us in our hearts, but we did the right thing, and Kevin loves us and needs loving, and that is a good thing."
"All of us want what is best for you and it might not always be what you want, but it will be what is best."

 The saying is "Give me a child til the age of 7, and I will give you the man." My 7 year old was hurting and afraid. I hope my 9 year old is the man instead!

 And I will break the peace and quiet now, and get the child up, hug him, tell him he is loved as I do every day several times, and I will be proud of him all over again. Deep down, I'll be proud of us all too, for getting over ourselves and putting him first, and not letting him be a divorce statistic child, or a bereavement statistic child, but encouraging him to be the man he wants to be.  But not yet.  I'd like another holiday (or more!)  like we've just had as well!