I was 49 when i became a widow for the second time - also had no idea how to move forward or what the point of my life was - my daughters had their own families and lived far away one on the other side of the world at the time i had no parents to turn too my mum who was my rock the first time had also died. I was lucky enough to have a couple of good friends but even they didn't live close by - on top of that i had to leave our home because i was down to just my income. I was absolutely at rock bottom but what kept me alive was him - even though he wasn't physically here any longer.
I wanted his memory to live on - not just a name on a headstone or a photo on a mantelpiece of some-one who died but of some-one who lived and whose life could continue to inspire me and others in the new generations.
It started with the funeral - after the service we floated daffodils down the river next to the church from the stepping stones - knowing that the lasting memory of that day for his grand kids would not be of sombre adults in a church but water and splashing and something more fun - he was a fun person and i wanted him to still be the one behind that . It also became a spot they could send him flowers or a leaf ( and on one occasion docked lambs tail) if they chose, and is still a place for picnics when the grand kids are around still fun still his special place even though the younger ones have never met him its still grandads stepping stones.
I went on to go back and plant native daffodils in our favorite camping places and his friends from our camping club sometimes were there - in a way he forced me to go to these places and to keep in contact with them because i was planting them for him and to do that i had to plan to contact people to keep our camper van on the road where i would really have liked just to go to bed and never get up or drink myself into oblivion.
as time went on i did things we said we would but didnt get round too and some things he would have loved to do and i would have sat out of because while i couldnt see a life for myself i was building one through living his for him.
When i moved i set about recreating our garden - the place he loved to be in - it was much smaller but had the same things even some of the original plants that i moved with me. I didn't realize at the time how much that was helping but looking back i do - i dug the pond and wore myself out physically so slept better but also found my self smiling at the way my pond digging had been such a joke between us earning me the pet name swampy -learned to lauhg at myself when i made a silly error knowing he would have laughed with me listened to his voice when i was working out how to do something practical.
On the first anniversary of his death i took the day off work and bought plants to go in a corner i had decided would be dedicated to him - the same way he did in our old garden when my mum died - some-where with his favourite plants the sound of water and the bird feeder he had bought for her and a seat i could go to sit quietly surrounded by the things they loved somewhere to this day i go to relax and suround myself with that love.While i was putting in the plants i suddenly became aware of the sun on my back and a robin singing so persistently i could not ignore it - i looked up to locate it and somehow looking up in what was only a fleeting moment when i felt briefly happy was when i started to climb out of the big hole he left in my life. It was a moment i clung too through darker days ahead telling myself if i could feel happy in that moment there would be more of those moments if i accepted the darkness when it came but hung on and looked for them.
We are all different and what works for one doesnt work for everyone but the principle is the same just different ideas of how to do it. Like Sandra though i have found the greatest healer to be the natural world.
Grief is a long hard journey a roller coaster where you climb slowly up a hill only to plunge back down again often at really unexpected times but when you think of what makes that roller coaster work other than the engine you have a chain made of lots of pieces and as you go along the links of that chain increase as you add more too it - it is made of friends and family - of outside support like finding somewhere like this to talk about things that sometimes you cant share with them, and of moments like that when a ray of sun comes out of the dark clouds.
Some of the links may go out of immediate view and you find new links to add. Some of those take time to find new interests, new jobs, new young family members new friends etc you dont think as individual links they can take away your pain some of them might mean letting go of others or triggering feelings of lonliness without him there to share with you but- the chain drags you up the hill and saves you from derailment when you plunge back down - and over time the thing levels out the ups get less steep and the falls less deep.
What holds the links together is the pins and they are made from the love you shared.That love doesn't go away it changes direction and form but doesn't break and doesn't leave you.
For me this forum was a strong part of the chain. We are not trained counselors just different people brought together by a shared pain of grief.The people here in my darkest days who were further along the journey than me reaching back to give me a helping hand and thats why i am still here, because i hope that i and others already here can do the same for others just starting out.
Please dont be afraid to come back and grab our hands when you need too we know they are virtual hands but there is genuine friendship behind what is written by them.