***2 Years later and I thought it appropriate to share, as much still rings true.***
Well, it's 2010.
I remember going into 2008 without Michael. It was the first year in which no history or memories would include him, a year in which reality took it's place next to me on my throne of grief. It's funny how my mind also worked in ways to revert back to a time when he was still living. I'd sign checks with 2007, set dates with friends on the phone or email with that year... it was, in a way, symbolic of my heart holding on to something not tangible... going into a year with Michael by my side.
Each year, the ball has dropped, and I've taken on at different capacities... 365 days of self reflection, self growth, setbacks, happiness, grief, pain, joy, curiosity, dreams, nightmares and more. With each year though, the hesitation and reluctance to accept the current year I'm in, has fallen to the wayside and I am becoming more aware and open to my present and all the gifts it holds.
Each year is lined with the sour notes of with my life without Michael, though positive thoughts and actions have taken place. I have learned that I am able to take on things (like a new year), with the knowledge that I feel him rooting me on and invisibly holding my hand when I am open to living life the way I did before tragedy struck.
So it's with that knowledge, that I will embrace 2010 and hope to feel his presence every time I laugh, smile, take on the world and explore all it's beauty.
Happy New Year!
"Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunder-storm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols." ~Thomas Mann
"It was the first year in which no history or memories would include him". This bothers me. (Not that you wrote it, but because it's true.) The fact that I'll have no memories of Dave beyond 2010 is another sad realization. Yes. I knew it, but I hadn't fully formed those thoughts in my mind yet. :(
ReplyDelete2011 holds no memories of Dave. Things are constantly changing. Things he would have loved to have seen or been a part of.
I regularly wonder where he would be in his grief if it had been me that died instead of him. Would he have moved on faster? Or would he have fallen apart? And I want to honour him in my grieving but I don't know what that means. On Wednesday evening a woman in my support group (her first day there) said that she had just read something that spoke to her. It was a quote by Thornton Wilder, “The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.”
I think she may be onto something.
Both my husband and I kept journals, even before we knew each other, and we continued throughout our lives. Once he passed I stopped writing- I didn't want to remember anything anymore, nothing in my life would have meaning anymore without him in it. Even as I continue in this life, and things change I can't seem to bring myself back to writing about it. I have on specials occasions written down my feeling but they are pages of me writing to him. I am forever changed and what bothers me now is with each passing birthday or New Years they are markers to me in the passage of time since I last held my husband and what once was and my life without my husband and I find them sad, not joyful or hopeful I know I should but my heart still hearts.......
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