One of the greatest challenges I face in my grief is self-loathing. Suse had the ability to do what I now find almost impossible: she was able to love me. I really don’t know how to do that. I liked who I was with her. I hate who I am without her. And no amount …
Today marks 500 days since Suse died. I suspect I’m the only one who would take note of that. I only know it because I have an app which counts the days. Why? I don’t know. I don’t know why the number of days matter. Maybe getting through each one is still my biggest goal. …
I sit here now, somewhat bemused, and still struggling to make sense of the fact that Susie is gone. Dead. This time last year she was alive and well, bursting with her characteristic enthusiasm, eagerly looking forward to crafting a bigger and better future, for our marriage, for our family, for our church. Oh, but …
One of the things I’ve found hardest to deal with in grief is the extreme sense of loneliness. Very often, the sense of isolation overwhelms me, and it is usually in these times when I find myself at my lowest ebb emotionally. Most of my tears now, even 11 months on, flow from the sickening …
Time doesn’t seem to exist in this new world. If it does, it doesn’t include days. There are no days, only dusk and dawn and the darkness linking them. Seconds, hours, weeks, months. These categories have lost meaning. Life is measured by experiences now. Good experiences. Bad experiences. Firsts. Repeated. Unexpected. Brief. Drawn out. Pleasurable. …
There are times, moments where grief and happiness seem to integrate. Often one gives way to the other, even feeds the other, but there have been moments where they’ve co-operated. My first experience of this was waking up on the second morning after Susie died. I was lying in bed, despairing at its sudden emptiness. …
If I imagine you speaking, imagine you loving me through this, you would tell me… …you would tell me “Husband…you are my happy place”, and you’d tell me you love me so very much. You’d tell me that it was such a gift to be able to call me your husband. You’d tell me how …
Hello, my love, how are you?How did you sleep last night?I’d love to hear you sing to methe story of your flight. Well I sense I slept quite deeplyon a bed of broken dreamsBut soundly very soundly for I’m rested now it seems. I dreamt that I was falling.At first I was afraid.But then I …
I remember wool. In fact, as colder days approach, I am reminded of wool more and more. Soon enough I’ll be reaching for the jumper she knitted me a couple of years ago, and the beanie she crocheted for me a month before she died. Her love will continue to warm me, even in her …
Black holes are born from bright stars. When a star collapses, the singularity formed creates such a gravity that not even light can escape its pull. What sort of force would it take to overcome the gravity of my star collapsing? I am yet to experience that morning when I wake up without Suse’s absence …