This will be my second Xmas without my wife. Last year we cremated her on the 9th and I came home and shut the door. Two weeks later I went to her Mothers, as we always did, and it was shit, like it always was. I went home, closed the door once more and saw no one till February. It was something I had no choice in, I was lost and the world was just too hard.
This year, I really don’t know what to expect, but I know it wont be as bad as last year, and for me that’s a relief I feel able to indulge in. I understand now that life will go up and down as it always does, my emotions will come and go, I’ll find things terrifying, I’ll find things joyful. None of that will bring my wife back, but I can keep her with me by living my life in all its confusing and uncertain detail.
This Friday I’m going with the joy of midwinter, solstice is coming, the planet will tilt and we’ll move back towards spring. We loved midwinter eve, my wife and I, our ‘works night out’. Go to the pubs, celebrate the change, looking for life, looking to summer, mark the past. I’ll do something different this year, maybe watch the sun rise, cook on a stove, go for a walk, meet with a friend, try and make new traditions, find new camaraderie, new excitements.
In all that, I’ll celebrate her, reflect on the change, perhaps embrace and accept them both. I really think it’s all there to be lived, it takes effort and it takes time, it’s never going to be what it was, but then nothing ever is. It will still be something I made with her. Together.