Yesterday was Halloween. A date I try not to remember. I snarl at anyone daft enough to mention it to me as a day to remember. Because of course I have more dead friends and relations than present friends. Having lost husbands, children, grandchildren and friends over the years I prefer not to think too much about them at this time. They are gone...hopefully upwards but you never know.
In the past I’ve done church services in remembrance of them all. Now I just stay at home and try not to get too sad. Yes, they are gone but in some ways they are still with me. I walk around the house chatting to David....it’s one of those weird facts that I had two husbands both called David...so one way or another it fits....and they know who they are! So at Halloween I avoid going to church...I avoid any deep conversations with anyone dropping in and I definitely don’t look for company...of either of the dead or the living....
Avoiding anyone who remembers them is necessary on these occasions...I really don’t need sad conversations about them now. I wish with all my heart that my children hadn’t died too but this no longer brings tears....it’s just a dreadful fact of life...I have outlived everyone I’ve ever loved. Even my dogs.
A couple of days ago I met a lady with two delightful golden retrievers. They were beautiful and well behaved and reminded me that when I moved to Cornwall I had two goldens in the back of my Discovery. Tempting though the thought is I must now remain dogless. There is a real chance that any pup I took on now would outlive me....and they couldn’t cruise with me either!
Given all the gaps that exist in my life I am still a very fortunate woman...and it’s only on bad days like Halloween that I really miss them all.... so on we go to the next one!
1 comment:
I suspect that many of us will mourn quietly not taking part in the Halloween experience. I have lost family in the last two or three years. My younger sister and my elder half brother. I also discovered via a third party, who claims to be related, that my mother who vanished from our lives when I was four years old, died in Dec 1985 in Lambeth in an institution that cared for those with mental health problems.
I was reflecting on loss, particularly the loss of a beloved uncle on my birthday some years further back, when I found myself quietly in tears. Grief that I thought I had put away, resurfaced just by reflecting on a particular day.
I'm sure that I am not alone in this. But I will be at our All Souls service tomorrow, remembering the lives recently lost and those further back. For the first time, I will be robed and working in the service and will have others loss to consider, some of whose funerals I have worked on in the past four years or so.
My incumbent is encouraging me to become Licensed for Funeral Ministry, but I feel to raw at the moment for that - perhaps in a few months?
And I can't be alone, my spouse is here, alive, and now thankfully well after our scare earlier this year with double pneumonia God be praised. I don't know what I would have done if she had died as a consequence of the infection.
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