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..
