Showing posts with label grief. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grief. Show all posts

1.1.15

A New Year dawning


Many of my lovely friends and readers will know that at the beginning of 2012, soon after moving into our new home - this little cottage from which I write - my beloved partner Andy tragically died. So many of you supported me in those lonely, heartbroken and dark times. Even though I may not have replied to every email or message, their presence helped me work my way through the excruciating period of grief which followed. Thank you seems hardly enough.

I cannot deny that it has been a long, solitary journey since then, despite finding odd fragments of joy. The constant battle to endure the loneliness, the worry of finances and trying as best I can to make some sort of business. For whom? Because life alone for me, is not a life at all. And so this poor blog has been often neglected. I have had little to write about, save work and more work. But now it is a New Year and a fresh beginning for me. And for another person.

Immeasurable joy has danced into my life and I have a reason for living again. A loved one to care for, to cook for and to hold. My bleak life has been transformed and I remember yet again the poem quoted to me in the early days, by a dear friend and soul sister. 

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.

(Mary Oliver)


At the time, it seemed a horrendous mockery. Now I read it with a sense of blessedness and newly opened eyes. Welcome Joe; welcome to my life, my heart and my many dear friends, wherever in the world they may be.

3.1.14

Emerging

        


    "Oh God, your sea is so great and my boat is so small"
 (Breton fisherman's prayer)

Christmas has for many years been my least favourite part of the year and I knew that this one, my first without Andy and my first on my own, would be particularly rough. So I took a Sabbatical from online life and avoided the season as far as possible. Life for me went on as normal. I have been cloistered away in this little cottage for the last eleven months, grieving in solitude and trying to find a new way of life. It has been a struggle, but work has always been my lifeline and so it proved to be again. I used the time to explore new designs and plan a business that will hopefully enable me to stay here. 

Many people sent me cards and good wishes. Some hoped that I would be spending Christmas with friends or family. I did have invitations to stay with friends, but I would not have been good company and needed to face things on my own, fight my own demons. Thank you to everyone for the kind thoughts, which are so much appreciated, even if I have not celebrated the season.

My boat is very small and the ocean I'm sailing on seems unbelievably vast. But I learned to steer it, alone, at a young age and slowly I am learning to sail solo again. 





26.3.13

Surfacing




Dear friends - I have not felt able to return to this blog for a long time, despite the many, many good wishes and messages. The first month without Andy was an agonising madness, through which I was propped up by dear friends. I tried to sort out as many practical matters as I could, though each one took hours to work up to and recover from. There are still ongoing things, because death, especially an unexpected one, is a complicated business. So I wanted to come back and say hello when my head was in a slightly better place.  

My life was centred around two things; work and my darling Andy and the greater of these was Andy. Without him, creativity has little interest for me. Art, my life long friend, has deserted me for the first time. And yet I must work and so I do. Gradually, more and more each day.




I have been overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity of you all. Without the support you gave me of your thoughts, good wishes and prayers, heart felt letters and loving gifts,  I do not think I would be here now to write this. I have had some very dark moments indeed and desperate thoughts which I would not normally have. I held that goodwill close to me, lonely as I have been and that, combined with the wonderful love of my friends, brought me through it. Little did I know when I started this blog - over seven years ago - that one day it would literally be my life line. So thank you, everyone, for being there.



All photos taken from a train, Cambridgeshire