It’s been a while..

It actually hasn’t been as long as the dates suggest.

You see, I’ve written so many posts since the first one, and every single one of them has been deleted.

Between the last post that’s on here and this current one, I have experienced the true sense of grief.

I’ve written hundreds of words expressing anger. Anger at her being dead, anger at the doctors for not spotting her illness earlier, anger at lockdown robbing me of her last months, and anger at friends or family who haven’t once checked in. Have they moved on? How is that even possible?

I’ve written about having to endure the daunting thoughts of knowing that this is forever. I am always going to miss her. I am going to miss her and think about her for the rest of my life, and that is a terrifying prospect. After all, nothing is as permanent as death. It’s so strange knowing that there really is no hope. I saw her in her coffin, I spoke at her funeral and we’ve buried her ashes. And that’s it. As soon as the last of the soil-filled the hole where her remains are, her life truly ended.

So yeah.. It’s been difficult in ways I could never have imagined, and there’s been a lot to work through. If I’ve learnt anything yet, it’s that grief is unpredictable. It can attack when you least expect it. It can hit you head first at any point. Driving to pick my husband up from work, buttering another crumpet that I really don’t need, even when I’m just trying to get off to sleep.

There are days when I want to talk about her all the time. I want to look at pictures of her and reminisce about the life we had together. But then there are the days when it’s too painful to even think about her. When those days are rife, I can’t even bear to say or think the word ‘mum’ without feeling the empty pit of despair opening even wider inside my heart.

But today is a good day. Today I will look at the photo album I have of her and I’ll laugh at her questionable 90s haircuts. Today is as far as I can ever think, otherwise that looming sense of forever dawns, and that’s the biggest battle.