Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 32 Comments

Letter to you

“Tried to summon all that my heart finds true
And send it in my letter to you”

The words of Bruce Springsteen in LETTER TO YOU

Eight years back, when we were going through Mum’s house we came across a letter. Not to us, but still a letter. A decades old letter that indicated Dad had been married and divorced before he met Mum. We had no idea. Without finding that letter we would never have found out. I can imagine asking Mum …..

Why didn’t you or Dad mention this small fact…..

And I can already hear Mum’s response ‘Well you never asked dear, now go and put the kettle on, there is an old Clark Gable movie starting on the telly in a couple of minutes…..”

A friend in the village once told me that after his partner died he found a LETTER. A beautiful letter from his partner which talked about unbreakable love, wonderful times, happy memories and the best of times. The letter also talked about starting again, finding happiness, living life and maybe love again.

Definitely summoning all that my heart finds true.

I found a LETTER TO ME. With trepidation I opened the letter addressed to me. Not from the end but from a few years back. My partner liked to go on overseas solo adventures and I guess before every trip she wrote a letter just in case the worst happened. One of those letters had become hidden in other stuff and had become long forgotten.

I didn’t find too many expressions of love, no heartfelt messages. This LETTER TO ME basically reminded me to

  • Inform X,Y and Z.
  • To stop her Accountancy Subscription Fees.
  • Cancel her hair and dentist appointments.
  • To check her clothes pockets before I take them to the charity shop.
  • Make sure I clean her car out properly before I sell it.
  • Don’t forget to paint the front door.
  • Remember to put the bins out on a Tuesday…..

Not sure that’s the kind of thing Bruce was writing about in his song.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 45 Comments

Bruce

There are concerts and then there are CONCERTS….

Just a bit closer to the stage than the last time we saw BRUCE.

It’s strange how life works out sometimes. When I was much younger, I really wanted to see Bruce but the stars wouldn’t quite align. There was also quite a bit of that ‘shedloads of time in my pockets’ thing going on with me. No rush, plenty of time to sort stuff out.

But the years and decades rolled on. Bruce got older. I got older. That growing, nagging feeling, is there really plenty of time.

Then life hit the buffers. Bereavement. Single Parenting. Life felt like it had stopped. Permanently stopped. Bucket list stuff, things like seeing Bruce seemed like a million miles away and ever receding in the rear view mirror.

But slowly life started to spin again. A different life. Now a growing realisation that I won’t figure most things out in life, why things happen when they happen or don’t happen. That really clever, brilliant stuff is way beyond my pay grade. The other growing realisation, we really don’t have plenty of time in this life, but maybe, just maybe most of us will be given ENOUGH time to get enough done. Enough time to learn and grow. Enough time to experience enough in life, the good, the bad. It’s how we use that time, what guides us, our priorities, the choices we make, the doors that are opened for us, the doors that are closed to us, how we deal with the stuff of life.

No Bruce for decades and then wonderfully, unexpectedly, twice in 13 months. It’s a funny old life.