Tag: grief and loss

Posted in Life, Writing

One year

Posted on by Sharon

A year ago I was working.

Specifically, on this day a year ago, I was working from home.

Today, a year later, I am no longer working.

Retired now, I spend my days at home wondering how to spend my days.

It’s an interesting metaphor: to ‘spend’ days. It suggests that days are a currency.

If they are, then they’re a finite currency. We can’t ever be sure just how much is left, for how long our pocketful of days will last. It’s not like we can take the currency of days out and count them. We don’t get to say ‘oh, would you look at that. I have 18, 362 days left to spend.’ What might change if we did know? Anything?

Some people, of course, might actually do that. Potentially, those people who live by the maxim of not counting the days, but making the days count. They no doubt spend their days productively, creatively, socially, doing things that bring them/others joy, with the resolve of making the most of their remaining 18, 362 days.

I am not that person.

I start writing, and am almost immediately distracted by what I write. I cannot find a way back to the point I was wanting to make, and so write this (these words that are appearing on my screen right at this moment; these words you are currently reading) as a poor transition from the digression, as interesting as it is, back to my point.

I spend my days at home wondering how to spend my days.

Last year, on this day, it was different. I was working, trying to write a proposal that would meet the criteria and thus provide us with more work and thus more certainty over our working futures.

I can’t recall from this distance what that proposal was for and whether we were successful, but I do know that a year ago today I was working from home. And at 1:49pm the phone rang.

It seems harsh to say, but it’s no less true, that life goes on. The question of ‘how will I cope’ is answered simply by coping, whether that’s poorly or well or both. Decisions are made, work changes, new people come into your life, the children grow another foot taller … life goes on. Time is spent.

I wish I could say it’ll get easier after this first anniversary, but how would I know that?

I’ve spent way too long trying to find a profound conclusion, some piece of wisdom that makes sense of the past 365 days. But the truth is as messy as this post. Life goes on, not because we are brave or because we have a plan, but because the sun keeps rising and the days keep being spent in whatever ways we have enough energy for.

I actually don’t have a point. I just have time. And today, I’m spending it thinking of Trent and of those he left behind.

Another day dawns
Posted in Family, Life

After the big thing, the little things

Posted on by Sharon

The bananas have been sitting on the kitchen bench for over a week. She sees them when she rinses her coffee cup, and when she’s making the kids’ lunches on the days she’s working, and she sees them on the days she’s not working. They shrink just a little each day and she wonders if she should do something with them, but she’s not much into banana bread and her mind won’t stretch to more than that.

She gets furious with the toaster. It burnt her toast twice last week, partly because she was distracted and partly because it has a mind of its own that switches back to level 6 when she’s not looking.

And socks. How many feet are in this house? And the way they just expect to be paired up like nothing happened. Seriously!

Because, she’s discovered that after the big thing – the really big thing – come the little things, the mundane things. The MyGov password reset loop. Dealing with the bank. Not knowing how to deal with the bank. The text from a well-meaning friend saying “let me know if you need anything” when she’s already forgotten how to need things. The email reminder that the phone bill is overdue.

The mountain of tiny normal things that didn’t get the memo that her world had changed.

Maybe the little things are a kind of mercy. Something for her brain to busy itself with while the rest of her recalibrates. You can’t solve death, but you can wonder why the kids have suddenly stopped eating bananas. You can’t rewrite the awful bits, but you can yell at the toaster for making anything more than warm bread.

There’s no real point to this. I’m not even sure why I started writing, except that a few weeks ago she said ‘you haven’t written a blog post in ages’. It’s taken me a while to get my thinking straight and my head in the right place.

My thinking is this: if I ever was, I’m no longer convinced by people who respond to loss with wisdom or insight. I’m not convinced that grief makes you wise. It certainly makes you sad and angry and empty and …. The world, in its relentless striving for normalcy, doesn’t stop to accommodate the strange new reality, or the sadness or anger or emptiness or ….

It just keeps serving up the little things: the unmatched socks and toast that’s too brown and overdue phone bills and washing that won’t do itself. As if that’s all there is to be done.

And maybe for now it is.