Dearest Suse, Our world is entirely new, now. Well not entirely. It is and it isn’t. In so many respects, there’s a harsh continuity between the world you left and the one I didn’t. Your dresses still hang in the cupboard. Your knitting basket still sits by the lounge. Your face wash is still in …
“Soften into pain.” Soften into pain? I’m not sure I know what this means. Does it mean to imply I’ve not faced my pain? Because if it does, it’s wrong. I have, and I do. I face it every morning when I’m greeted by the hideous perfection of unruffled sheets…again. I face it every breakfast …
Do I live in grief, or does it live in me? That’s the question I’ve been wrestling with over the last few days. Admittedly, it may be a false dichotomy to draw–in all likelihood the response is “both-and” rather than “either-or”–but I feel it’s worth exploring the distinction. Because some times it feels like the …
Green. The colour of the shirt you were wearing the night we first met. The colour of the pastures we promised to help each other walk in. The colour of the freshness you forever brought to our home. The colour of the emerald in the first pair of earrings I bought you. The colour of …
A black canvas, punctured by a thousands shards of light. The night sky is an unrivaled beauty and yet it also serves as an excellent metaphor for the grisly reality of grief. A guiding star? A mentor in the emptiness? I’m not sure I have one I can single out. Certainly some have shone brighter …
A lopsided playing field emergingLies on the ground on its ownAnnounced, abandoned, goneThe scale is unparalleledMonths away, the light is coming,Will you get its share?The challenge of the miracle is strengthThe lowest it has ever beenAnd it has debtRefurbish or rebuild?Is my life getting easier?Do my kids have a future? After years of goodThe lie …
Kindness. What would kindness mean? What would kindness look like? Perhaps the question I need to start with is: what DOES kindness mean Because I knew kindness. And I saw kindness. I saw it the night Suse and I met. She talked to me. More than that, she listened to me. That was a kindness. …
Friday July 6, 2018. 12:36am. Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney. I was only one second a widower when I met her. The emergency doctor had just finished telling me there was nothing more they could do. Suse lay motionless on the table. Dead. Her beautiful heart arrested. I refuse to say failed. Her heart never …
Perfume on your pillow. That’s become my guilty pleasure now. My little foray into fantasy every night. I use it like some sort of magical elixir, hoping somehow to trick my mind into dreaming of you. I like to think of it as a way of breathing you in. It hasn’t worked yet. I don’t …
Here’s how I live in the desert. I begin each day by reaching out to the barren bed beside me. She’s still not there. But the perfume I sprayed on her pillow last night lingers. And the desert wind blows memories of her back to me which I nostalgically breathe in. But memories are like …