My beloved husband, Kent, died in January 2012, 3 years after diagnosis of a brain tumour. Our son was 2 1/2 and our daughter 3 months old. He and I were far too young. I am now hurtling through the black space of life without him.

Friday 21 September 2012

36

"If you told me this time last year
That I would feel like I do now
Well, I wouldn't have believed you...
All I want to do is to be with you
And everything else seems unimportant compared

For today, I remember your smile
For today, I remember your smile...

There's a hole in my well being

So big you could drive a truck right through...

For today, I remember your smile
For today, I remember your smile..."

Netherworld Dancing Toys
 
For more about our day today, click here.


Monday 17 September 2012

Some Heart Did Break


Never Morning Wore to Evening but Some Heart Did Break - Walter Langley


Here it is. My grief.

I saw this picture recently (thanks to a friend who used it on her blog) and it paralysed me. All the heartache and pain that I have is there, and I know the taste of her tears. I couldn't drag my eyes away from it, or stop the tears from flowing, and in fact I now have a copy of it to hang on my wall, because this is where I am right now.


I could say that I don't need to keep writing, as everything is in that picture. But you know I like words too. I followed my friend's link and learned that this picture is titled after a line in the poem In Memoriam A.H.H. by Alfred Tennyson, and that the woman has lost her fisherman at sea.

The poem is famous, unbelievably long (133 "cantos" with 3-6 stanzas in each), is written for Tennyson's  friend (AHH) who died aged 23, and includes the lines that you will all know "'Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all."

I spent some time looking through this poem, and have pulled out some of the stanzas that meant something to me. It feels a bit naughty, like quoting bible passages and missing some bits out, but as I say, these are just the bits that rang true in my heart. These first three stanzas, most appropriately, comment on the concept of trying to put grief in to words.


I sometimes hold it half a sin
    To put in words the grief I feel;
    For words, like Nature, half reveal
    And half conceal the Soul within.

    But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
    A use in measured language lies;
    The sad mechanic exercise,
    Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.
   
   
    In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,
    Like coarsest clothes against the cold:
    But that large grief which these enfold
    Is given in outline and no more.

                              --

That loss is common would not make
    My own less bitter, rather more:
    Too common! Never morning wore
    To evening, but some heart did break

                              --

Dark house, by which once more I stand
    Here in the long unlovely street,
    Doors, where my heart was used to beat
    So quickly, waiting for a hand,
   
   
    A hand that can be clasp'd no more—
    Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
    And like a guilty thing I creep
    At earliest morning to the door.
   
   
    He is not here; but far away
    The noise of life begins again,
    And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain
    On the bald street breaks the blank day.

                             --

Tears of the widower, when he sees
    A late-lost form that sleep reveals,
    And moves his doubtful arms, and feels
    Her place is empty, fall like these;
   
   
    Which weep a loss for ever new,
    A void where heart on heart reposed;
    And, where warm hands have prest and closed,
    Silence, till I be silent too.
   
   
    Which weep the comrade of my choice,
    An awful thought, a life removed,
    The human-hearted man I loved,
    A Spirit, not a breathing voice.


Never Morning Wore to Evening but Some Heart Did Break - Walter Langley


 Thank you, all of you, for being that old woman to me.



 

Sunday 16 September 2012

Spring

A spring without hope is a strange thing indeed. But it's here, I found it in my garden today, covered in tears.



Saturday 15 September 2012

Everything

"You sheltered me from harm.
Kept me warm, kept me warm.
You gave my life to me.
Set me free, set me free.
The finest years I ever knew,
Were all the years I had with you.

And I would give anything I own.
I'd give up my life, my heart, my home.
I would give everything I own,
Just to have you back again.

You taught me how to laugh.
What a time, what a time.
You never said too much,
But still you showed the way
And I knew from watching you.
Nobody else could ever know,
The part of me that can't let go.

And I would give anything I own,
I'd give up my life, my heart, my home.
I would give everything I own,
Just to have you back again.

I would give anything I own,
I'd give up my life, my heart, my home.
I would give everything I own,
Just to have you back again;
Just to touch you once again."

Everything I Own - Bread

Thursday 6 September 2012

A Vinegar Month

I'm sorry, none of us expected you to be signing up to read bad poetry, and when it's also personal and painful that's doubly hard. I did warn that this could morph in to anything, though I am keen to get back to the topic of what grief is like, as I still seem to have plenty to say. I would like to chat more often actually, but rarely have the time or energy. The sleep deprivation that comes with motherhood is a nasty enough beast on its own and I have been battling that too.

There has been a lot of stinging in my wounds this last month. I've been trying to put my finger on why that is. We've had a lot of illness since the beginning of August when the little guy started kindy, and that has led to many sleepless nights. I had very little sleep in the bank prior to August anyway. These last few months have seen some very dark nights and I have been dragged to places way, way beyond what I can cope with. No doubt all this tiredness has contributed to the sting.

But also, the little girl is growing up. This is not a bad thing. She's 10 months old and *utterly* delightful. She is chatty, chilled out, smiley, low maintenance, and loves to launch in regularly for a good snuggle. I know what she needs, I know how to make her happy, she rarely cries and I don't have to feed her and change her every 5 minutes. We are beyond the tough early stage and we've reached the good life. This is a time of life I have looked forward to for a long time. I have my children, pregnancy is behind me (thank goodness!), I have a little boy and a little girl... just what I always wanted, only I did assume that them having a father here would go with the territory. We have a cosy home, friends and family nearby, and nice things to do with our days. Life is so close to perfect, but so absolutely, desperately, horribly far. There's a great big black gaping hole in our home, and a great big red wound where my heart used to be.

I was in a local bakery recently and the woman who served me commented on my children and the fact that I had a son and a daughter. "You are so lucky" she said.  Yes, yes I am so blessed to have a son and daughter, and I am the unluckiest girl in town.

Sunday 2 September 2012

Beating

It's just sort of lying there on the floor, ripped out of its body and cut in to pieces. It's pulsing; amazingly, it seems to still be beating. This is impossible, but fortunate, but cruel. As it lies there in the quiet it seems to be waiting, but there is nothing to wait for.

Mine too

Actually, he was protector and defender of MY heart too.