Imagine this. You’re juggling a dozen or more brightly coloured balls, keeping them carefully spaced apart and all in the air at the same time. It’s not easy but you are well practiced and so your hands grab each ball at exactly the right time to grasp it, and flick it on it’s way before the next one comes around.
And then…. they all fall to the ground at exactly the same time. Crash!!!
What if this was your life, and all the balls are the various aspects of your life that you keep in motion. Confidently and with the expectation of somebody who has managed their own life for a long time, you know what is going to happen next.
And then your partner/soul-mate/love of your life….dies. Crash!!!
Grief…along with anxiety, stress and depression….is just plain exhausting. It consumes every single aspect of every single day with no reprieve in sight. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to take even a short break? A mini-holiday? I was about 6 weeks into my grief journey when I discovered that I could do just that, so I thought I’d share my experience. It began one day when I went outside to put something into the bin….
“Eng-a-land swings like a pendulum do, Bobbies on bicycles, two by two…”
You’ve got that song in your head now, haven’t you. Sorry ’bout that. 🎵 England was my first trip completely alone since my husband Norbert died, so I thought I’d put together some of my loveliest memories, and also share what I learned from the occasions when I turned into a panic-stricken idiot!
I have a friend called Carmel who is an expert in grief support. Why do I think that? Because without her, I’m not sure I would have survived the first night. I’ve asked her to write a Guest Post…….
Hi, I’m Carmel. I had been out for the day and arrived home around 4pm and decided to check my emails. There was one that had the subject heading ‘Norbert killed in a tragic accident‘. Wha…????
Clocks stopping…and going backwards. Music starting up in the middle of the night and things inexplicably (and catastrophically) breaking. It started within hours of receiving the devastating news that my husband Norbert had been killed in a glider crash and over the subsequent couple of weeks it was so obvious that we weren’t exactly wondering if it was a coincidence, but rather…what would happen next!
The clouds were grey and hanging low in the sky when I got into my car and drove away from my home. The heavy skies were threatening rain, and the weather matched my mood as I took a deep breath, and fought to regain the tight control I had had on my emotions and well-being for some time. But…it felt like things were going off the rails.