So Christmas 2023 is over, thank goodness. Yet I am still here.
This is the second Christmas on my own since my gorgeous wife Christine died, exactly two years ago come the 6th of January. I have no recollection of that first Christmas on my own. In fact, I have hardly any recollection of the passing of the first year. I put this down to shock and the attendant numbness. As the second year progressed, shock and numbness receded to be replaced by a growing realisation of the horror of what had happened. Profound sadness and aloneness bloomed. I have never felt so desolate. In my ignorance I would not have believed it even possible to feel so unutterably bereft. No forewarning, no prose, no poetry could come close to the actuality of the lived experience. A living nightmare. Just dumb words.
I have been dreading this second Christmas. Memories of our last Christmas together kept coming to the fore. Christine was desperately ill at this point. It was utterly heartbreakingly awful. Each time they arose, I tried to bring to mind past Christmases when we were together and all was lovely. This has allowed me to get through the day but it has been very very tough. Yet I am still here.
For myself, and to everyone else in this excellent community who find Christmas a particularly awful and challenging time just pause for a moment and observe: We are still here.
However inconceivably awful the day has been; maybe you have endured new depths of sadness, loss and aloneness that you did not think possible. We have got through it: Maybe weeping, maybe screaming, maybe with family or friends, maybe alone, perhaps going for a walk, or watching TV or whatever. We have got through it. We are still here.
Does this not demonstrate that actually at our core there is an astounding strength? A strength that we never dreamt we had? Does this not suggest that even the tinniest bit of this strength can be used to start to crawl, ever so slowly, in the direction of a more tolerable, dare I say, a happier life that accommodates our loss? I fervently hope so.
I am still here. But this time next year it is my hope and wish to be in an ever so slightly better “here”.
To everyone in this community, and especially those who find Christmas singularly horrendous I say: Well done! We have endured it. What undeniable strength we have! Well done!
Simon x