As I walked out one September morning....

Last Saturday the sun shone – a beautiful, September morning. I had no reason not to be cheerful. Showered and breakfasted, I set off to walk the dog beside the river, “again inside the fullness of life”, as John O'Donohue puts it in his Blessing for Grief.

I share the day as poems, because they seem a better form for my understanding of what happened.

Walking with Grief

I step outside and call the dog to heel,
laugh when he hides, trying to dodge the lead.
We walk,
talk to the woman standing by the church.

Sun on the water, river rippling green,
reflecting trees so soon to lose their leaves.
September, I think, serenely lovely month.

The woods:
a hazel tree new fallen on the path,
the earth ripped open, broken by its weight.

I navigate the ruptured soil and then,
foot catching in a root half proud half buried,
I fall,
tumbling
rolling
down the bank
teeth clashing,
down and down
until
I come to rest,
where by next month 
the river will be flowing.
Looking up I see
how far I've fallen.

I call the dog. 
He stands, looks, waits.
Am I one piece or shattered into many?
How will I mount the bank?
Will I rest here?
I am alone
hurting
disorientated.
Do I have the strength to pull back up?
I try;
too hard.
Is there an easier route?
A few feet further on I gain the path.
Shaken.

“Let's go home,” I tell the dog. We go.
Bit by bit I find the parts that hurt:
right leg, left knee, left hip, right arm, left shoulder;
lower back and neck and right side jaw;
the tender place protected by my ribs.

Sitting,
still and quiet, silence in my body;
move, intend or reach, I find the pain.
I find it isn't all entirely new.

I ask:
Had the river flowed where it will flow,
would I have let myself be carried home?

To return to John O'Donohue: in the falling and in its aftermath, the “moment [broke]” and I was “thrown back/onto the black tide of loss.” It is never not with me but I am not always with it.

The answer to that final question is now a definitive “No” - I want my life. But sometimes there is a longing so deep within, to let the river take the weight of all that I carry.

Repair

There was a Repair Cafe in the village that morning and remembering, I took along a broken kettle. Someone kindly made me a cup of tea. I left a while later and here is an encounter on my way home.

I passed our house of love today

I passed our house of love today,
where we were happy,
where our Christmas tree was way too big,
where we dreamed a too big future.

Our landlord was there and lady too,
invited me inside.
I fell in love again
with the sweetness of the space,
the stone walls
wrapping themselves thickly,
safely around me.

“We were happy here,” I said,
“before the complications.”

Before your outrage at life's harsh hand;
before your shame came calling;
before you hid yourself from me;
before I said,
“You're not sure, are you, 
you want to be here?”
and you said, “No”;
before the tumour in your brain;
before you knew for sure 
you didn't want to leave;
before the seizures and blue lights;
before the knock on the door,
the policeman, the “incident”
that left my son dead.

We were happy in that house,
making each other Christmas gifts,
making love in the big iron bed,
making food and fires,
dreaming.

Those dreams died with you, my love.
I've dreamed again, alone.
Without your love
I wonder why;
without you here
and your belief in me,
can I sustain
a single dream?

I passed our house of love today,
stepped through the door,
remembered.

These poems aren't miserable, at least not intentionally. I maintain an intimacy with grief, not to be self indulgent, but because I know it nourishes both love and compassion. And so, I suppose, I have answered my own question about carrying the weight – I choose to do so. I don't want my love, my grief, to be half buried, ready to trip me up. I want to feel it all and know it all, let it work with me, let it transform me, let it teach me light and shade, sorrow and joy. Yes, joy.

On my afternoon walk, I sat by the river looking downstream.

Electric blue flash.
Air sliced. 
		Kingfisher.
Unsentimental
		entirely.

That image seemed to stain my eyes with iridescence. I can still see the blue.

With my love

Nickie

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I have:

Half hour ‘cup of tea’ sessions for those of you who just need to sit down with a cuppa and have me be a sounding board, a listener, someone to breathe out with.

One hour sessions can be for exploring your relationship with your death (imminent or not), or for bringing focus and understanding to your grief, or they can be for general support including menopause.

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