Growth & Moving Forward

You make it hard to feel sad about your going, this second wedding anniversary without you.  Our Forever Forty Anniversary.  That last one we spent together - just two months before you died without telling anyone.

You make it hard to feel sad … because you never really left at all.  And now Mrs Christmas lives on – especially in Jo, our daughter.  Your long-term secret: “skimming from the top” of our weekly housekeeping budget (which our girls told me about with much laughter “after”) - now I have a “proper Christmas Budget” (which still wouldn’t have been enough for you) – just without your “fifty-two weeks” Christmas shopping for everyone.  And you know what Mand … ?  Our children loved you enough to see how much joy your way gave to you – even though now we have all agreed the volume and “random gifts” were totally ott.  So we have changed that – and are still finding our way – but without losing any love at all. 

You make it hard to feel sad … because more and more you are here.  More than your clothes still as they were - your “stuff” still as it was that day. Your slippers.  Your perfume.  Your everything.  For me it is that your soul still lives here - in the plants that blossom and bloom so wonderfully - the occasional beautiful fragrances you surprise me with - in the gentle thoughts and guidance you share inside my very brain cells – you are finally inside my head and heart (and I think I am in you as well)!  And sometime soon I will move your things and keep a few for us.  Because you and I had reached a place where “stuff” was less and less important (apart from Christmas – obvs!).  So when I do go through your stuff it will be with enjoyment and all our lovely memories.  And then I’ll donate “you” to a local refuge – to those who need your “stuff” right now.

You make it hard to feel sad … because you keep showing me that we are still together.  Just like on that January day - none of us knew it was to be “the day” – not even you.  I was three thousand miles away – you were here on your own – everything was perfectly normal.  Our love was so much more than needing us to be on the same sofa all the time.  Our love that is (still) so much more.  And while I miss your physical touch and presence so much (so very very very much), this love has grown stronger these past twenty-two months.  More unconditional - more gentle – and so much more forgiving - so much more “grounded”.

Which is why, for me, today on our second anniversary of you “there” and me “here” – today is about hope.  Today is about us now and us in the future.  Today is about our love and our eternity.  Today is about what our love was, is – what it can do and be – how our love changed us and everyone we created or touched.   So today on our Forever Forty Anniversary I have no sadness (at least none that matters).  No regrets.  No questions.  Simply a grateful celebration of us – our physical us then and our eternal us now – our forever place of peace where “stuff” is unnecessary.  I have a quiet growing pride in who we were, who we became and who we still are.  Thank you, gorgeous lady – my lady – our Mandy-Mum-Nana.

I love you.