Hello,
Well - Tom’s second anniversary is today. I am sitting at the kitchen table in my new house, a place completely without Tom, save his pictures, dotted round.
The sun is shining and Storm Jocelyn has gone. The gardeners came early and cheerfully set about their work of trimming the trees and stripping back the dead plants. New growth is now visible - a sign of the coming Spring.
I am here in the present and yet, at the same time, in the past - in the room in the hospice, two years ago, sitting by Tom’s bed as his laboured breathing continued, as the clock ran down. By this time, we had been in the hospice about 2 weeks. Life had shrunk to those 4 walls and my life as I knew it, was ending, too. We were together until 20:10, when he relaxed, knowing I was safe, and died.
I stayed for about 40 minutes and then walked through the freezing night to the car - the one where he and I had shared our first kiss, the one we used for long trips, criss-crossing Europe, and back and forth to our beloved mountains. I climbed in, my mind empty, my heart broken and my focus on the road ahead. I just needed to function. To take the next logical step - get home - and go from there. And I did, from lily-pad to lily-pad, it seemed, through those aching days, weeks, months.
The past two years I have got to know grief so well. Its ways and means, its visits, its healing and its challenge. I have grown in so many ways.
I have spoken to Tom every day, every night. From the raw howling of his name into the darkness in the early months, begging him to come back, to walking around our little town saying in my mind to him “I’m still here, Tom”. Each day, and every day, even now, I find myself saying out loud “I wish Tom was here” - meaning his security, his kindness, his warmth - him, in all his Tom-ness.
A year ago this night I was in France in the mountains. One year after that last breath. I believe that Tom came to me then, to love me into knowing that it was ok to move forward, to look up and to live again. I spent 2023 sorting out my life, finding a new home (this lovely little place), selling past properties and leaving the last rental we shared before he went to hospital and didn’t return.
I have sorted acres of stuff - furniture, garages, clothes, paper - all manner of things - always moving forward, always looking to make the jump to and from the last lily-pad, to land and stand on solid ground.
And now, 2 years on from his death and 1 year on from his blessing, I am now safely landed, off the last lily-pad and into my own New Found Land. I have my home here and in France, I understand my financial situation and am running things with a firm hand on the tiller. I sit where Tom sat, I am driving. It is ok. He is happy where he is, I know and wants the best for me.
I am starting a new relationship with a widower who gets the whole “madness of grief” thing having watched his beloved wife of decades die from cancer in just 8 weeks. Like I did with Tom, I feel so very comfortable with him.
We both want our relationship to work - so maybe it will - we know life can shut dreams down and break hearts without a second thought or glance, so we take what we have and we treasure it.
My friends, I post this with love to all of you who have walked with me since my first, desperate post here, just over 2 years ago. Those of you who have encouraged me, laughed with me, held me in your thoughts, prayed for me and with me, just kept the heck going.
Thank you for being there, thank you for understanding and for caring.
The road ahead of us all is long, but we have each other’s company as we go.
Hold tight, everyone, keep walking - each step takes us closer to that reunion with those we love, those we miss and those we will see again.
Your friend and fellow-griever,
Vancouver x
thank you for sharing and giving me hope that I won’t always feel like I do at the moment xxxx