A Sunday in a very quiet part of Yorkshire. A good place to think.

It’s now over 5 years since I became a widow. Where did those 5 years go. Some days it feels like a lifetime, then there are times when it only seems like yesterday. Whatever it feels like, a lot has changed over those years. I’m a changed person with a changed outlook on life (and death). There were times when I thought that was it, life was over. It was just a matter of survival. But I made it through those times and I’m ready to start experiencing what this world has to offer again. I am dreaming again. Different dreams and whisper it, bigger dreams. Maybe that’s a surprising thought. Grief has taught me how to better LIVE. Looking back, to the run up to my partner dying, my priorities were far too often skewed. Maybe I was just surviving. Taking life for granted. Going through the motions. Not looking for adventures. Already personally hemmed in, struggling. Then everything changed within two weeks. Suddenly life’s safety net was removed. I was a single parent with the established script ripped up. I didn’t realise it but I suddenly had to face up to life. Over those 5 years I had to make changes, reappraise everything. Finally decide what was truly important to me.

So as I stood looking across that peaceful graveyard I could see something which I had missed. Grief was about coming to terms with loss, coming to terms with regrets, trying to be the best parent I could be to a young child who needed me AND a process of coming back to life again.

56 thoughts on “Thinking”

  3. Oh Gary! (((Hugs)))
    Yes, grief can teach us so much and our lives can be turned upside down with no notice. Now it seems that your life is turning right side up, you fought to hold yourself together, to be there for your son and you did it!! Keep walking, Keep smiling, this journey in life has so much to offer!

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  16. Beautiful post, Gary. Yes, death has a way of forcing us to reassess our priorities. It is nearing the anniversary of the death of my brother, also five years ago this month. You have been a wonderful source of inspiration throughout these years. I am so glad your are dreaming again. May your greatest hopes be realized!

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  18. It may be more important than you think that you are sharing this with us. I hope many, who are in a similar situation but not as far as you are, are gaining hope and encouragement. This little insight is so crucial and life-changing: Life is not just a chain of procedures, obligations, and routines. It is so much more!! It is exploring, it is new discoveries, it is sunrises every single day, it is a new spring followed by winter. It is new possibilities and options at the moment we decide to look out for them.
    Thank you so much for sharing your experience in all its facets.

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  22. All the various shades of grief I’ve plummeted into, shouted alone in the wilderness at, walked with asking questions or sat contemplating the new way of seeing things. Yup, it changed me in so many ways and yet I am all those people I have been all rolled up into this now. Thankfully, grief is currently in a quietness stage, but that it has given me the ability to see things that others couldn’t perhaps bare to see. I think Joanne Rowling personified the feeling 🐎 as thestrals:

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  26. Pingback: Thinking – Bloody Roses

  27. Ugh…I understand this process but in a quite different scenario. It’s an awakening alright, a loss like that. Sounds like you’ve chosen to walk through it with an eye to opening up. So wise….

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  28. This resonates with me albeit for a very different reason. Glad I read your post (at 3am) inspiration sparked (preferably on a low burn til the morning!)

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