Grief

An old friend refound, Z, was recently posting about her own losses and carrying on. Perhaps not funny at all how that set me thinking about my own. I lost a partner over thirty years ago, and my own parents in the last decade. Grief is a funny old thing, it never actually goes away. Your life goes on, if you’re lucky, and I consider myself to be, you find new joys and reasons for life to contiues.

For me, I met LL and we started a family. There was a time in life I said I’d do anything to have my first partner back. Then I had my own children and that changed. I could never unwish, undo, my children. They are firmly at the centre of my life, and even in dark moments, know they are there, and not ever wanting to willfully hurt them, means I carry on. Hope and love are those things that keep us living.

Yet love for those past is also one of life’s worst pains. I have my moments thinking back, wondering, even having my own conversations with ghosts. Actually, that can happen quite frequently. You see something and in your mind show it to someone lost in time. Imagine a conversation about it, and both feel the grief of the conversation not being real, but maybe, a little, enjoying the connection.

So, life goes on, but you never forget them, never loose the pain of their passing. The trick, and its not an easy trick, is to live on, both for yourself and those still living. Live on, and find new joy, and sometimes just carry on.