The Dates

It’s that time of year.

Lyndie pretty much always in my mind just now.

Without specifics, our anniversary was last week, her birthday is this week and the date she died following week.

No particular wisdom to offer, I’ve just been rolling with it. Some days more difficult and others easier.

Aware of myself, aware of how I’m feeling, and aware of the loss in our lives.

Grief isn’t a simple thing and it’s complicated by our relationship and now knowing more than I did at the time.

I can look back at how I felt and how I feel now, and it’s a jumble of stuff to make sense about. Some of it is guilt, shame, ‘what if’s’, along with happier thoughts.

I know people have specific blogs on grief and I had thought about it, but I wasn’t seeking to create anything in that way.

I also felt my life was more than just being a widower and dealing with my own issues and those of the kids was worth my attention too.

I know that the crash for others that are widowed might be greater, as they were living together, in love, happy relationship and boom, it happens.

I can understand that, but even going from ‘not a great place’, a sudden loss of someone young is life changing and it’s no less valid having gone through good and bad together.

It can be difficult to relate with people that haven’t had the experience, making a complication upon complication and can make the community or Facebook groups difficult to navigate.

I find Facebook hard enough to deal with, not everyone had can post picture perfect experiences and nights out, holidays etc.

So, trying to be positive and helpful can be difficult, especially when my experience is different.

Ultimately, there’s a shared experiences in the dates as everyone has to navigate birthday, wedding anniversary, and the death date.

Ideally, I wouldn’t mark the death date, celebrate the birthday, particularly for the kids to remember.

But, it’s to be navigated and handled and it’s not an easy time.