Grief one year on – 6.6.25
Today is one year since we celebrated your life – just five days after you left the physical plane. I cannot say you died because I know that your spirit is still very much alive – I feel you with me all the time. In big and little ways, you have let me know this year how very much you love me and are still with me. At times it feels as if we talk more now that you are gone than when you were in a physical body. But still the absence of your physicality – it is more than pain. It is a whole body and spirit experience. Your short illness and process of dying impacted me more fully than I was prepared for.
In the 2 weeks of your process of preparing to die in hospital I was broken open, feeling so much love both for you and from you – more than I ever could have imagined. As we realised that we were being torn apart, we both opened our souls and hearts to each other. I wish that we could have done it sooner and that we could have had more time to be able to be so fully in that experience of love and care for each other. And in the year since then I have felt more alone and more alive emotionally than I ever have. Determined not to numb myself or avoid my grief. If someone asks me how I feel – it is a question too big to answer. There is no one answer. The feelings pile on top of one another like a game of jenga. If someone asks me what the grief is like now one year one – it is both easier and harder than it was that day we celebrated you. I am more aware of it, less in a fog of overwhelm and sadness. I am both more alive as I have met my feelings about you and more dead as it feels like a part of me died with you. Your death has cracked me open. I am more alive, more aware of life and love and joy, more in awe of nature, more connected to myself and also more in pain, more sad, more heavy, more broken than I have ever felt before.
We met at a time, over twenty years ago now, when both of us were so wounded. You had a traumatic childhood and an adult life where you nearly died and were left with a chronic illness that impacted our relationship; while I had experiences of trauma and neuro-diversity that also impacted our relationship. We had many tumultuous years and then a shorter but very rich time of love and care for each other in the last few years. I can only wish we had had longer. And more of the good times. More conscious awareness of how short life is and so not to sweat the small stuff like who left the dishes or who put something on the wrong place in the kitchen cupbards.. In the past year I have reflected so much about the good and bad times. But overall what impacts me the most is how much my life would not be what it is now – a professional counsellor and homeopath – without you. You were my cheerleader and constant support. You never held me back – you always had faith in me and saw my potential and not only that you fully supported my journey towards realising my dreams. From paying for my homeopathy training, to being there for me through accidents, broken bones, major surgeries, deep trauma therapy. Supporting me to learn to ride a scooter, on busy Sydney roads. Supporting me to work less so I could focus on my healing. Supporting me to run retreats and workshops in our home and far away. Which is why I cannot step back from those dreams now – because while you would support every choice I make, you would say it was a waste. And it would be. So while it is hard every day to get out of bed and say yes to life – I do it for you and with you still by my side – albeit in a more subtle form.
The journey of the past year of grief has been so many things. No one can prepare a person for this. I studied grief as a concept in my training. I thought I knew it well. But NOTHING can prepare you. I think the loss of a partner, spouse, the one who is your person and your world… it is a kind of loss that is different to that of the loss of a parent, a child, a grandparent. It is not more or less but it is different. I didn’t realise until you were gone how much you were and are a part of my world. Every thought, every second, you were a part of me. Even now when I go to the shops, I see something and I think of how or whether you would like it; from a food you like to new socks and a dressing gown. Sometimes I even get my phone out to text you before I realise – re-remember – that you are gone. When I go away, I no longer have you there as my silent support, the one I know is home to tend the hearth, feed the cats and be there to let me know everything is going to be alright when I get anxious about driving on a remote country road. You are the only person who has ever really known me, inside and out. I don’t think anyone ever will again. So, I talk to you, constantly, incessantly. In life you would have got sick of me talking and buried yourself in your gaming, but in death you are there more consistently. You tell me everything will be ok. You send me feathers and birds when I ask for signs. You make old friends ring me out of the blue when I most need to hear from them. You have sent me clients and new friends. I know it is you because it is just all too much of a coincidence to not be. The new rental house I found when I had to leave our home of 12 years – it is too perfect to not have been orchestrated in part by you – because only you knew my deepest needs in a home. So, when I have one of my many moments of panic about the future and how I will cope without you – this I remember – all the ways that you have supported me and shown me you are here over the past year. My connection to you is what will help me keep going on towards the future. You told me when you were dying that I would have a magnificent life. I am still not sure I am ready for magnificent, but I am working towards it. While joining you in the life beyond has tempted me at times I know that it isn’t my destiny just yet, that I still have life to live and if it can become magnificent, even in your absence, it will be, in a way, a tribute to how much you have loved me in life and continue to love me in spirit.
