There was this guy, he was a man of course and that's important in what is to come . He thought he was a bit different than the average male, he was told so, by men, by women, by both. It didn't make him special, just different, that's it...! O.K the difference; so he thought, remember he only thought, he could never certify it as fact of course, just thinking, it was emotional, it was open, it was direct. He wanted to express what he felt because that was the thing, what he felt he couldn't control; emotions, moods, feelings! You can try to seek ways to control these, you can apply thought restrictions, mechanisms and schemes in books, in apps, in payment, in making you socially relevant to your peers. All laudable I'm sure but I'm describing what I can only perceive as a personal thing, the 'un-controllable'. The un-remitting, quiet but powerful sub-text to all of our existences, that we can't buy, or purchase, or manage or micro effect, or...... erase! It's the emotion that dictates you, emanates from your core and predominates your life without exception. It can happen I'm led to believe over a course of time, it can be the result of hormones, it can be a terrible, terrible mental health issue where people often become the cause rather than the solution, it can come out of no-where or be relationship based or environmental or even social. In some cases it can come as a result of trauma, of drama, of shock! That's me (and others I know) and that's my uncontrollable mood, emotion, feeling, 18 months, 21 days, 12 hours on from that very moment.. Personal response..
Loneliness- The quality of being unfrequented and remote, more isolated.
Lonely- Never something to admit as a man because well, 'it's weak', 'and sad' and 'get over it'.
Man- Breathes, acts, sleeps! Evidently.
The wish to be alone- Work, relationships, play and then I'm desperate for some 'me' time and just to be alone. I felt this when with someone.
Lonesome- Not talked about,'then date','there are those who are destined to be single forever and let's not talk about that'. Difficult. Time. Complicated. For sure.. Alternative?
To express- 'Talk, communicate, don't bottle it up','don't be proud we need to share things'. It's not weakness, it's not strong, it's the opposite of strong, it leads to problems, anxiety, stress and maybe death.. That thing again.....
So I've become adapt at these things as a result of what only I saw, I'm not unique in what I feel or have undergone I understand, but I am in what I saw and what I experienced so it makes me something in all this, it gives me some credence, status. I miss my wife. Fact!
Selfish- Lacking consideration for others.
I don't, I try not to. I think little about my own grief and everything about others. I think about little else and therefore do not think about my own thoughts in that way. I have a responsibility, I have 2 actually, make that 3.. Each occupies my every thought, all the time. I'm self-deprecating, critical, I try not to be wrong, as we all do. I don't always succeed but 'god' from what experience can others advise or opioniate in this?
I- Pertaining to self.
On the 3rd responsibility I wrestle with what to do about loneliness, emptiness, a void, a chasm, a nothingness. Completing our picture, filling this gap. Changing our lives. I'm someone who has always sought the 'rush', the 'thrill', the 'excitement'. I trained as a professional actor, always searching for the ultimate opening night, ergo I've been a runner every day since the age of 13. It does the same thing, transcends me from the normal. I've always been that, looking at the clock, counting down each hour, looking forward to the rush. I don't do drugs, I try to satisfy my emotional cravings in other ways. It's who I am! 'I' again. Sorry....
Running, reading, meditation, new places, new people, more reading, more running, events, charity, spending money, spending more money, 'occupy yourself', 'keep busy', spend money. Sister loves me, family loves me. Self help, support groups, advice websites, forums, open up, express yourself, blog, don't blog! Keep quiet, try! Open door, shut door, 'your fault', blame, hate, blame, money. Sister loves me! Life, live, 'care for', be a good parent, be a good friend, expect things, expect nothing, get nothing, day after day. Friends contact, friends no contact. Loneliness!
Boredom- Lack of enthusiasm, lack of interest.
"I want you to write and write and never stop. Don't waste it Matty.."
I have responsibilities that I am determined to fulfil but the only way these can be fulfilled, is if I do indeed seek to address the un-controllable.
Is it any wonder therefore that for 'both' of our sakes I do what I do... No? Yes?
Love you babes!
Friday 30 October 2015
Monday 3 August 2015
No memory is ever out of reach
Our ten year anniversary today (04/04/2005). Seventeen years as part of one another's life (25/04/1998). You always believed somehow in the possibility of communication, a link or a sign from those no longer in this world, so now I must believe that you are listening and hearing these words.
Today I think about us, just you and me for a moment. My life is so full of thinking and worrying about others, for responsibilities I have and naturally decisions I've taken since we last saw one another. No preparation and no training just the awful difficulty of carrying on and doing what you believed in so much, living! This but without one another in this world. I know you would see the difficulty of this. Some can look and judge but can only imagine what the experience must be like. Just from imagination. There are many who do care though.
You knew I was sceptical, quietly suspicious of what was for you an important truth, so now I will believe in it. You communicated with me! What you explained to me and how you clarified things when I listened made sense in that moment. Time stopped for an instant again much as it had done when your life began elsewhere. So ten years ago in Kephalonia, and then in Egypt, in Crete and Paris and Athens and the Lake District. In laughter, in fun, in our dark times and our good. Still here, but in a different way.
For the sunset beach and the skipped hearts
getting away and dreaming of freedom.
A special place, reserved in olive smells, pure white and diamond.
No memory is ever out of reach.
Forgetting the undercurrent amidst shifting golden sands.
No tear emotions and the intimacy of laughter, of fun and hope.
"This could be us, this could be our dream". Leaving it all for a moment,
No memory is ever out of reach.
The belief in you, the belief in me, in us.
Change, never still for one moment. The want that hurt us.
Secret thoughts, talking flows, talking stops. Silence and watching whilst others seemed to take flight.
No memory is ever out of reach.
Island, out of reach and difficult to get to.
A dream, an image, a better life.
The outstretched arm, hand, grasping at nothing.
No memory is ever out of reach,
Neither should no dream or want.
04/08/2005
M. xx
Today I think about us, just you and me for a moment. My life is so full of thinking and worrying about others, for responsibilities I have and naturally decisions I've taken since we last saw one another. No preparation and no training just the awful difficulty of carrying on and doing what you believed in so much, living! This but without one another in this world. I know you would see the difficulty of this. Some can look and judge but can only imagine what the experience must be like. Just from imagination. There are many who do care though.
You knew I was sceptical, quietly suspicious of what was for you an important truth, so now I will believe in it. You communicated with me! What you explained to me and how you clarified things when I listened made sense in that moment. Time stopped for an instant again much as it had done when your life began elsewhere. So ten years ago in Kephalonia, and then in Egypt, in Crete and Paris and Athens and the Lake District. In laughter, in fun, in our dark times and our good. Still here, but in a different way.
For the sunset beach and the skipped hearts
getting away and dreaming of freedom.
A special place, reserved in olive smells, pure white and diamond.
No memory is ever out of reach.
Forgetting the undercurrent amidst shifting golden sands.
No tear emotions and the intimacy of laughter, of fun and hope.
"This could be us, this could be our dream". Leaving it all for a moment,
No memory is ever out of reach.
The belief in you, the belief in me, in us.
Change, never still for one moment. The want that hurt us.
Secret thoughts, talking flows, talking stops. Silence and watching whilst others seemed to take flight.
No memory is ever out of reach.
Island, out of reach and difficult to get to.
A dream, an image, a better life.
The outstretched arm, hand, grasping at nothing.
No memory is ever out of reach,
Neither should no dream or want.
04/08/2005
M. xx
Wednesday 8 April 2015
Frozen
Shock accompanies disbelief, disbelief to a numb feeling, numbness to pain and loss, loss to this perpetual questioning, imagining,' thinking out loud' of what has gone and what is being lived through in the present and what might be in the future. Frozen thoughts and memories that remain still forever. Endless imagined conversations are played over in the mind, like a playwright composing dialogue for a tragic tale of separation and loss. The dialogue comes thick and fast, is vivid and real, it stirs emotions of pain and anger, hurt and longing . It can stop you in your tracks just as soon as it starts or recoil to a dark place to gather its own thoughts again for the next assault. Convenient narratives contrived in the absence of knowing and truth. Such is the journey of grief and bereavement. Bereavement, the period of loss as one adjusts to trauma. Grief, the mental and emotional suffering one undergoes after loss. Definitions and explanations of all too real experiences. The period of coming to terms with losing someone you loved and cared for , still care for in essence and this ability now to separate what was once in this life that has now past, with what is currently happening, with what might be all too real in the future!
It is nigh on one year now since my wife Sue so tragically lost her amazingly courageous battle with illness. A year that of course has seen so much; unprecedented, un-chartered happenings. Laughter, getting on, difficulties, pain, hope, belief, they have all come and gone, like life does! Ebbing and flowing like the tide simply underlining the unprecedented nature of what I live through now. No preparation or training, no 'would have done it this way or that' simply personal, unique and utterly, utterly private. In the same way that other family and friends endure the same journey albeit in their own way, but also personal and private.
I'm remembering my wife at the moment as this brilliant 'would be' businesswoman, entrepreneur, this extraordinary visionary! I wish she could sort mine and Lily's I.T issues out. Ha! Ha! She is power dressed and in control, at the head of an organisation. No doubt she would have seen 'Sue Sheppard Inc' on some gold plate in her own life had she just been given half a chance, half a chance in business and half a chance in life. Sue made her own luck, created her own chances from nothing, given more time she would have achieved even better things and scaled new heights. It was happening!
Lily remembers the glamour and dresses, high heels and make up. She also remembers this wonderful, caring and loving mum who knew how to instruct and love in an equal, effortless manner, something her dad is struggling to learn now by himself. Friends do amazing charitable deeds raising much needed funds for brilliant causes, keeping alive the memory in many beautiful ways. They describe this unforgettable energy, the fun, laughter and intense joy of life. How Sue was able to 'light up a room'. I understand how much my wife meant to such a lot of people, I also know how much her daughters miss their mum. I know about these things and I care about these things, deeply! I want these words to convey just that. She remains very much here in those memories day by day.
I enjoy this growing relationship I naturally have with my youngest Lily now. We spend a lot of time together, just being with one another, coming to terms with our loss in our own way and living life. We humour one another, laugh, have 'moments' of course and make up. I try and understand her love of You-Tube as much as she sits and occasionally listens to me about the importance of reading, the un-importance of mobiles and enjoying the fresh air. But I like to think a bond between father and daughter strengthens day by day. We look out for one another, she is my world and I'd like to think that she cares about her dad too, in just a small way, like that? I think that would make her mum happy!
To all Sue's family and friends one year on. The pain of loss is still acutely felt but she remains very much a part of our dreams and memories for now and always.
Shine on Suzy this year, next year and forever.
It is nigh on one year now since my wife Sue so tragically lost her amazingly courageous battle with illness. A year that of course has seen so much; unprecedented, un-chartered happenings. Laughter, getting on, difficulties, pain, hope, belief, they have all come and gone, like life does! Ebbing and flowing like the tide simply underlining the unprecedented nature of what I live through now. No preparation or training, no 'would have done it this way or that' simply personal, unique and utterly, utterly private. In the same way that other family and friends endure the same journey albeit in their own way, but also personal and private.
I'm remembering my wife at the moment as this brilliant 'would be' businesswoman, entrepreneur, this extraordinary visionary! I wish she could sort mine and Lily's I.T issues out. Ha! Ha! She is power dressed and in control, at the head of an organisation. No doubt she would have seen 'Sue Sheppard Inc' on some gold plate in her own life had she just been given half a chance, half a chance in business and half a chance in life. Sue made her own luck, created her own chances from nothing, given more time she would have achieved even better things and scaled new heights. It was happening!
Lily remembers the glamour and dresses, high heels and make up. She also remembers this wonderful, caring and loving mum who knew how to instruct and love in an equal, effortless manner, something her dad is struggling to learn now by himself. Friends do amazing charitable deeds raising much needed funds for brilliant causes, keeping alive the memory in many beautiful ways. They describe this unforgettable energy, the fun, laughter and intense joy of life. How Sue was able to 'light up a room'. I understand how much my wife meant to such a lot of people, I also know how much her daughters miss their mum. I know about these things and I care about these things, deeply! I want these words to convey just that. She remains very much here in those memories day by day.
I enjoy this growing relationship I naturally have with my youngest Lily now. We spend a lot of time together, just being with one another, coming to terms with our loss in our own way and living life. We humour one another, laugh, have 'moments' of course and make up. I try and understand her love of You-Tube as much as she sits and occasionally listens to me about the importance of reading, the un-importance of mobiles and enjoying the fresh air. But I like to think a bond between father and daughter strengthens day by day. We look out for one another, she is my world and I'd like to think that she cares about her dad too, in just a small way, like that? I think that would make her mum happy!
To all Sue's family and friends one year on. The pain of loss is still acutely felt but she remains very much a part of our dreams and memories for now and always.
Shine on Suzy this year, next year and forever.
Friday 20 February 2015
We Remember
Message to Sue. She does good! I get letters commending Lily's outstanding attitude to learning, one of the top pupils in her year. The science department think her hard work is amazing. She go's running sometimes now like her dad always does. She eats an orange a day. She has many friends, she laughs and tries to enjoy her life. Like her dad! I hope you would be OK with that? I think you would.
What is the thing that separates need from want, desire from merely accepting, the struggle to determine the differences between right from wrong in areas that are more grey than simply black and white? Opinions, thoughts, views, experiences, feelings, the desire to seek some universal truth! If there is one? "Its a personal thing," "I struggle with it but am happy for you?" What?
I started this blog as a way of expressing some of my thoughts and to get 'things' off my chest . To make vivid the realities of what we all have to face at some point and in so doing make some small contribution to helping or informing others I suppose. It's called 'Dying to Know' because amongst the very ordinary things that we all cope with everyday; getting ready for work, getting the kids up, breakfasts, lunches, dinners, after school clubs, trying to have our own lives (!), money, debt, nice times (!), kids, kids and kids, love and fun, in the background, always, is the spectre of also deeper things, the things that we might shove to the back of a drawer like an old grotty pair of socks; the cheery thoughts of death, illness, mortality! Not really part of my life in my 20's/ 30's but now very much a feature of it in my 40's for one reason and another. Perhaps the bare truth of all our glorious uncertainties, glorious in so much that life can offer such riches, but can also be cruel, vindictive and hurtful like grief is. These things, unpalatable truths, happen to us all eventually in one way or another so in life what should we do? Worry about all that in-perpetuity? God no! Surely not! Life is to be lived, whilst we can, whilst we are healthy, our children are healthy and happy and the sun shines. Ergo. Enjoy whilst we can! So when one suffers un-imaginable trauma, when a natural or un-natural disorder takes place well before all our times there are of course a number of principals that suddenly, inextricably come into place:
Number 1: Forgo everything that you feel or may want for the sake of the children.
And Remember
Number 2: Make sure the memory of the deceased remains as positive and vivid as it can be forever.
So Remember
Number 3: Keep close friends and relatives abreast of every personal development that now takes place in your life because they have a right to know.
But Still Remember
Number 4: Do all of this as a novice, as an in-experienced widow and take into account the advice and thoughts of others who are not, who have not experienced this, yet feel completely obliged to impart to you the wisdom of their experiences of life to apparently help in the happiness of your's. Because evidently it's their way of honouring the deceased.
But good God Remember
Number 5: Remember there are a number of relatives, friends and acquaintances who couldn't be more than happy that you are apparently trying to get on with your life.
Remember this
Number 6: Continue to pay bills and greet children in the morning as if the new day could be the day that changes everything for the better.
But Remember that whatever your changed circumstances, the grief, the darkness, the endless loneliness and inevitability, debts still need to maintained, houses still need to be heated, fuel continues to go into cars and lives therefore still need to be lived . Practically and emotionally!
So that's another principal that I have come to terms with. I try to live my life post my wonderful Sue, make my choices, take my route; this pathway has been difficult for some but in grief, in the circumstances that me and my young daughter find ourselves in, we talk endlessly, glowingly about new! New experiences, new horizons, new possibilities.... Do you know what, the very thing my Sue's and me discussed, that took us away from the immediate difficulties of our present, the wish for something else, for us, for our children beyond the here, yes! New horizons, new experiences that she can grow and thrive in her own unique way. And that's another impenetrable, unmovable fact. Despite the angst and anxiety, opinions and thoughts of a few, the most important thing that binds us all together is the fact of remembrance. I don't forget! Who she was, what she meant to many, but most importantly for my daughter the loveliness of her mum. And she will never forget that as long as I'm allowed to try and continue to be the best dad I possibly can in the most difficult of circumstances. The diamond shines bright in some respects because of, not despite of, my life continuing to move on!
I will never forget and therefore neither will Lily..
What is the thing that separates need from want, desire from merely accepting, the struggle to determine the differences between right from wrong in areas that are more grey than simply black and white? Opinions, thoughts, views, experiences, feelings, the desire to seek some universal truth! If there is one? "Its a personal thing," "I struggle with it but am happy for you?" What?
I started this blog as a way of expressing some of my thoughts and to get 'things' off my chest . To make vivid the realities of what we all have to face at some point and in so doing make some small contribution to helping or informing others I suppose. It's called 'Dying to Know' because amongst the very ordinary things that we all cope with everyday; getting ready for work, getting the kids up, breakfasts, lunches, dinners, after school clubs, trying to have our own lives (!), money, debt, nice times (!), kids, kids and kids, love and fun, in the background, always, is the spectre of also deeper things, the things that we might shove to the back of a drawer like an old grotty pair of socks; the cheery thoughts of death, illness, mortality! Not really part of my life in my 20's/ 30's but now very much a feature of it in my 40's for one reason and another. Perhaps the bare truth of all our glorious uncertainties, glorious in so much that life can offer such riches, but can also be cruel, vindictive and hurtful like grief is. These things, unpalatable truths, happen to us all eventually in one way or another so in life what should we do? Worry about all that in-perpetuity? God no! Surely not! Life is to be lived, whilst we can, whilst we are healthy, our children are healthy and happy and the sun shines. Ergo. Enjoy whilst we can! So when one suffers un-imaginable trauma, when a natural or un-natural disorder takes place well before all our times there are of course a number of principals that suddenly, inextricably come into place:
Number 1: Forgo everything that you feel or may want for the sake of the children.
And Remember
Number 2: Make sure the memory of the deceased remains as positive and vivid as it can be forever.
So Remember
Number 3: Keep close friends and relatives abreast of every personal development that now takes place in your life because they have a right to know.
But Still Remember
Number 4: Do all of this as a novice, as an in-experienced widow and take into account the advice and thoughts of others who are not, who have not experienced this, yet feel completely obliged to impart to you the wisdom of their experiences of life to apparently help in the happiness of your's. Because evidently it's their way of honouring the deceased.
But good God Remember
Number 5: Remember there are a number of relatives, friends and acquaintances who couldn't be more than happy that you are apparently trying to get on with your life.
Remember this
Number 6: Continue to pay bills and greet children in the morning as if the new day could be the day that changes everything for the better.
But Remember that whatever your changed circumstances, the grief, the darkness, the endless loneliness and inevitability, debts still need to maintained, houses still need to be heated, fuel continues to go into cars and lives therefore still need to be lived . Practically and emotionally!
So that's another principal that I have come to terms with. I try to live my life post my wonderful Sue, make my choices, take my route; this pathway has been difficult for some but in grief, in the circumstances that me and my young daughter find ourselves in, we talk endlessly, glowingly about new! New experiences, new horizons, new possibilities.... Do you know what, the very thing my Sue's and me discussed, that took us away from the immediate difficulties of our present, the wish for something else, for us, for our children beyond the here, yes! New horizons, new experiences that she can grow and thrive in her own unique way. And that's another impenetrable, unmovable fact. Despite the angst and anxiety, opinions and thoughts of a few, the most important thing that binds us all together is the fact of remembrance. I don't forget! Who she was, what she meant to many, but most importantly for my daughter the loveliness of her mum. And she will never forget that as long as I'm allowed to try and continue to be the best dad I possibly can in the most difficult of circumstances. The diamond shines bright in some respects because of, not despite of, my life continuing to move on!
I will never forget and therefore neither will Lily..
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