Pausing

I have taken a wee break from this space this week, a short pause.  It has been a busy week here on so many levels, physically and emotionally, with family to stay, friends to stay, a short trip away and a weekend to spend tramping the hills after a d of e group.

My father in law died a few weeks ago and his funeral was earlier this week.  I do not really know my husbands extended family at all, I met some of them at his brothers wedding fifteen years ago none of them came to mine it was too far for them to travel.  I find meeting new people exhausting in itself, coupled with the occasion I was rather drained.

My grandfather died when I was fifteen he had been married for over forty years.  I will never ever forget going to see my granny the week he died.  She was sat in a chair in the garden with her family around her, she looked small and 'reduced', her eyes were closed like she could not and did not want to be part of the world as it carried on around her.  Her sense of loss was enormous to my fifteen year old self, I realised how important my grandfather was in her life.  She came to live with us for a few months after he died and for weeks she hardly got out of bed.  I used to go and sit with her when I came home from school, I hardly ever spoke just gave her some company or held her hand.  My mother and her brothers sorted out the house and the estate for her.

Grief is an emotion you cannot hide, it is very visible.  When it is not there it is not because it is invisible perhaps the sadness is not that strong.  If you are married for over forty years and there is no grief how can that be.  What kind of life has been lived for those years, I cannot begin to imagine, it is not the life I am leading.  What my grandfathers death showed me is that it is possible to find and marry someone who you can love so deeply that when they do pass away your life is diminished.  The strength of that relationship is the strength of your grief.

Do we have a fragile existence on this earth.  Should we worry about this.  Will worrying consume us.  Or live our lives to the full in the here and now, enjoying what we have, making conscious decisions, giving of our love and receiving of others love.

Making sense of what I have seen and heard, absorbing this has consumed me this week.  It has been a time of pausing and reflecting.  It has made me realise that I have and continue to make good choices in my life.  I am at peace.