We're here. Somehow another year has passed and though there have been times, days, snippets of time where you've haunted my dreams; nothing quite like these past few nights. How can it be that I can walk upstairs and forget just what I came for, yet four years ago is embedded, itching at my heart as angry as it was all that time ago?
There have been times in the last week that it's crept. Fathers day brought familiar tears, memories, anger and jealousy. Talking with friends about the song I'll walk down the aisle to was discussed with a pang of guilt, sadness. It'll never be how it should have. The last week, the glass has been less than half empty, there's been a dribble at best.
This morning a man at the train station was smoking a cigar; as the cloud filled the morning air, all I could do is watch the gust lift it to the skies and wish it could carry me on up there with it. To you. At lunch time, a stranger probably not too much younger than you were- late seventies at best, smiled at me and it felt like your smile was radiating through his eyes, reminding me you're still with me. On the train home again, I played every conceivable game with myself to think of anything but you "This year will be different, I'll be stronger." And on arriving home, to the bouquet of beautiful red roses on my doorstep, left there in the evening sunshine by your darling daughter, my darling mother; to comfort me and what tomorrow brings. I finally have broken again.
It isn't so much that I wish you back anymore, I know it isn't what you'd have wanted. It's just the chance to say goodbye. It's the regret that haunts me for not coming to your side, for taking the last days we had together for granted and for the selfishness that I've felt for all this time, yearning you back again.
For now, I'm left with a loneliness in my heart that can't be filled by anyone or anything. Tomorrow it will come strong but I now can trust that it will begin to fade soon after. Somehow that feels even more disloyal. I no longer question whether I make you proud. I step outside every single day with that same intention, I know I'm doing ok. That's the first time I've said that to myself, "I'm doing ok." And maybe I won't be quite there tomorrow, and maybe not even the day straight after, but I still feel you with me, I feel you as my shadow and I know you're right there keeping the 'John Holmes' in me, even when I feel all alone.
Love Your Sophie Xx
Beautifully written. The pain never goes away, but you will get better at dealing with it. So sorry for your loss x
ReplyDeleteThe memories of the people we've lost can really haunt us at times, but we have to push past and remember all the memories we had of them together, all that we had, not all that we won't have again.
ReplyDeleteI hope next week gets easier for you. I just let Fathers Day pass me by this year... sometimes I find purposely not being reminded helps.
A lovely reader of mine directed me to this post after reading something similar on my post and I'm so glad that she did. I completely understand and sympathise with what you're going through. It's been 5 months virtually to the day since my grandad passed, a man who had pretty much raised me, and potentially was the only male figure in my life I looked up to. His absence breaks me every day, but it also gives me so much strength, and in a way reading this was extremely comforting. Not that I feel comforted by the thought of others feeling the same loss as I do, but by knowing, and this may sound strange, that even several years on this loss is still apart of life. I think that was one of the most prominent fears upon my first loss; what if I can't remember them? I've dealt with loss frequently over the past few years, and each time I never think I'll get over it, but each time, I come out stronger than before. When my grandad passed I feel as though I absorbed some of his qualities, his personal straights, mainly his strength; fathers day, his birthday, and the 5th month marking all happened within a very close time proximity and while I've been reading the lines they all want to hear (I'm fine, don't worry), this post brought me a great bit of comfort and has reminded me that it's okay to admit that i'm not okay. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI hope your strength grows, and I hope your memories stay vivid. I hope that this loss does not consume you, and I hope that one day you can say "i'm okay" and truly mean it.
Heather, porcelainbeauty xx