bereavement

A Small Death

Posted on by Cathy Penman

Farthing

One of my goldfish has died.  Farthing.  (Came after Orange, Lemon, and Clement.)

It was the most placid fish, and seemed to have a calming effect on the others.  It was a ‘neutral’ fish – it was never aggressive, never bullied the others, and it seldom got chased or bullied itself.  I thought of it as probably female because of this behaviour, but can’t be sure.

For about a week it became listless, sitting at the bottom of the tank and not swimming around.  I separated it yesterday morning and it was clearly not well, not able to right itself, floating on its side.

It once before nearly died, after I first got it, but somehow it recovered, so this had sort of been its extra life anyway (about two years).

I hoped it might survive but found it dead late last night.  I have buried it in a place that only I know.

It’s only a small death, but nevertheless… the spectre of death presenting itself again.

It does of course make you aware of the parallels of when a person close to you had their last few days and died.

Poor Farthing.  You shared a bit of my life with me, in a small way.

I do wonder whether the remaining fish, for a moment, in some part of their brains, notice the absence of one of their companions.  (‘What happened to that nice quiet orange fish with the big tail that we used to swim around with?’)  This is something we humans will never know – such a thought could not be detectable or measurable. Maybe if there were only two fish, the remaining one might change in its behaviour, indicating an awareness of loss.  But with several remaining, they all behave as normal and there’s no way of knowing if they know or care (unlikely).

Never mind, I care.

 

 

 

 

News update

Posted on by Cathy Penman

Dear John

It will be three years soon, and I’m still living in the same house, the same area.

I need to move and am working towards ‘letting go’.  I don’t want to be faced with difficult spots, painful memories wherever I go.  I think a fresh start would be a good idea now.

But I’ve lived in the same house for 20 years.  I’ve spent 2 years tidying and sorting and now know every corner and where everything is.

I’m attached to it, I’m comforted by the familiarity, and I don’t fancy the disruption of a move.

Nevertheless, it has to be done.

In other news –

I keep seeing things in my local area that I want to tell you about, that you would have been interested in.

That new school has opened already, by the station, which you thought was in such a bad spot because it would add to already ridiculous traffic.

They have added more ‘street furniture’ everywhere in the form of benches, which promptly become used by large groups of vagrants drinking beer all day.  (I remember your opinions on street furniture!)

Yet another place we knew well has closed – the Indian takeaway ‘Depa’ which we used for so many years for deliveries.   I don’t like things that provided me with comfort not being available any more (!!!)

You would hardly recognise the area around Victoria station – so much new building, huge new office blocks and new bars and restaurants (which we could have explored).

And finally –

I saw a small dead black and white bird on the pavement right in front of me today, in the town centre.  Must have been a pied wagtail, hit by a car.

Unusual.  Not nice.  I refuse to give it any significance.

Yellow Chairs

Posted on by Cathy Penman

 

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Have arrived alone at a hotel in the country, on my way to somewhere.

Walked into the room – which is split level and with a balcony outside overlooking a lovely green valley – to be confronted with two beautiful yellow (greeny-yellow) chairs, standing side by side.  The chairs have brought on some weeping.  Impossible not to be thinking how it should be me and him sitting in them, not just me alone.  A dreadful awareness of loneliness and grief – especially because it’s so quiet and rural, with wind in the trees and birds of prey circling overhead.

I must force myself to focus on living in the present, and enjoying the here and now.  There’s nothing I can do about his absence, so I will just take in and enjoy things myself – the yellow chairs, the shiny curtains, the balcony, the view, the wind.  The daffodils, the primroses, the palms.  The swimming pool.

I’m becoming a connoisseur of hotel swimming pools – I’ve been away quite a bit and I keep choosing hotels with indoor pools, as it gives me a chance to get some exercise in a nicer environment.  I’ve been using local public pools also, one of which in particular is modern and nice, but hotel pools are a different experience.  No groups of noisy schoolkids, generally fewer people, and often with nice facilities, like jacuzzi, sauna and steam room.  I do tend to find such places relaxing and escapist, which I suppose is the idea.

The one in this hotel has a spa pool with these sort of metal beds in – you lie on them and it bubbles up strongly under you.  Wonderful!  A new experience for me.  I had four goes!

In the changing rooms, like in most places I’ve been, there’s a spin drier, to remove water from your costume.  The other day when I tried an inner city gym, I asked a woman whether there was a spin drier anywhere, and she gave me such a bemused and incredulous look, like such an idea was quite ridiculous.  I felt embarrassed but incredulous myself that someone had never come across a spin drier in a swimming pool changing room before.  I guess maybe I’ve been spoilt by private pools.

After my swim and a wonderful shower, I return to my room – but have to try not to look at the two yellow chairs, so demanding of two people.

Sea Pie and Cobweb

Posted on by Cathy Penman

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I’ve been engaged in a long and major sort out of ‘stuff’, and am now opening boxes of things from my past, which all (well mostly) seem very dear to me.  (When you first lose someone, all things seem worthless, because you would’ve given every last possession to save someone’s life; but now I feel like my possessions are precious – I haven’t got him any more, but I’ve still got my things.)

I’ve found lots of old children’s books and have just re-read one called Wish For A Pony.  I can tell from my own handwriting in the front of it that I read it very young, yet the writing style seems so adult and highbrow, you can’t believe a child would have understood it all.  Look at some of this vocabulary:

“The girls’ eyes paid silent homage to…”
“…no room in their burdened minds…”
“…with hearty determination.”
“…until it was abruptly terminated…”
“…wallowed placidly forward…”
“…handing over the disreputable parcel…”
“She rummaged obligingly…”
“Tamzin trailed dejectedly…”
“I’ll guarantee them as absolutely immaculate.”

So I’m reading this, when in my kiddy handwriting I’ve misspelled ‘white’ as ‘whight’?  I guess that’s how you learn the language and become literate, though, by learning new words from the context.

Maybe it’s just that the writing is old-fashioned, compared to today:
“’I say!’ breathed Rissa on the threshold. ‘This is smashing!’”

Anyway, there are two girls in the book and they ride two ponies at a stables on the beach – one called Sea Pie (bay), the other Cobweb (grey).

On the same day as I found the book, I also came across two little souvenir ponies/donkeys from Corfu, made out of leather.  One is brown and one is grey, so naturally they have become Sea Pie and Cobweb.

It’s sad how I’m reverting to childhood.  It’s something to do with needing/getting comfort wherever you can.

St John’s Passion

Posted on by Cathy Penman

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Went to a performance of St John’s Passion in a lovely big church in Kensington recently.  The choir was very good, well worth listening to, with a lovely rich sound.  I wasn’t that impressed with the tenor though; I thought his diction wasn’t clear enough, and also there was no engagement with the audience.  It’s such a central role, ‘The Evangelist’, such a focal point for the piece, I would have thought it was an opportunity to really make your presence felt, and deliver it in a way that keeps the audience’s attention on you and on the story.  Basically, I don’t think the Evangelist was Evangelical enough.

I enjoyed it all though.  The penultimate chorus is a piece that, rather morbidly, I sometimes have to stop myself singing because I’ve always thought I’d have it played at my funeral.  I sung it years ago at school and it’s got itself deep in my soul.  I’ve always known it as ‘Lie still… (oh sacred limbs lie sleeping, and I will lay aside my weeping…)’.  But in this translation it was ‘Sleep well’.  Oh dear.  I don’t think ‘Sleep well’ has anything like the power of ‘Lie still’ in that context.

I went on my own and of course it was impossible not to think about my partner (and his absence) the whole time.  When I go to things like this I’m experiencing what they say about how people can be lonely in a crowd.  There were loads of people there who were all obviously interested enough to listen to a serious classical piece like that, and I felt like I had something in common with them, and I belonged.  At yet of course everyone is in couples or family groups, and though you sort of look at people with a smile on your face in the hope of striking up a conversation, no-one spoke to me at all.

In fact the whole of that day, my only attempt at interacting with someone was to make a comment to a guy walking a little white dog just like the one that’s recently won Crufts.  I said something like, ‘Oh look, it’s the Crufts winner!  Any relation?’  He didn’t really respond and the dog just pooed right in front of me.

Me And My Teddy Bears

Posted on by Cathy Penman

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I’ve got two selected teddy bears in my bedroom.  One is from the Splendour of the Seas cruise we went on (he has a t-shirt with the name of the ship on it), and his name is Splendid.  He represents the past.

The other is from the Isle of Wight last year.  His t-shirt says The Needles so (needless to say) I call him Needless.  Since he dates from after my life-changing event, he represents the future.

I sometimes pick one or other of them up, depending on my mood.  Sometimes I cradle Needless and say to him something like, ‘well it’s just me and you now, you’ve got to help me face my new future on my own’.  But sometimes I grab Splendid and say, ‘don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten you, you (ie the past) are always going to be precious to me, and will stay with me always’.

That’s the sad story of me and my two teddy bears.

New General Blog

Posted on by Cathy Penman

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I was writing a ‘Bereavement Blog’ on this site and also, for a while, ‘John’s Blog From Heaven’.  Now that time has moved on, I have decided to include all those entries within my book ‘A Widow’s Words’, and start a General Blog here instead (though I’m sure some comments relating to my recent experience may still slip in).

I will try to illustrate the blog, though some of the images may be gratuitous/unrelated. (They will all be my photography though.)

Your comments and feedback on anything on this site are very welcome.

 

 

New Year

Posted on by Cathy Penman

It has occurred to me that this is probably the first time in my whole life that I have spent a Christmas or New Years Day entirely on my own.  We would always have shared them together, and before I’d met John I would have been with family.

I did spend Christmas with family, but today I’ve been all day at home alone, trying to treat it like any other day, and getting on with things like sorting and washing.

But it’s not any other day.  It’s the first day that it’s already that he died last year, not this year any more.  Everyone comments on the passage of time, my life is racing on.  But I feel utterly adrift with a completely uncertain future.

I didn’t stay up for the new year.  What’s everyone celebrating anyway?  The fact that the world has kept on turning?

I don’t think I’ll ever be singing Auld Lang Syne again, not without John to sing it with.

 

Blinkers

Posted on by Cathy Penman

I’ve just been shopping in the town centre, looking for a few Christmas gifts, and buying myself some ‘special’ bits of food, the sort of thing that’s only available at Christmas.  As I walk around town I find myself constantly cross-checking everything against John’s existence, and my loss.  So it’s, ‘that’s the shop I bought him that expensive anniversary watch in’, ‘that’s the shop that used to be Past Times where we often used to look at things together’, ‘that’s the bench where we sometimes used to meet up’, ‘that’s the shop where he bought me such and such’, ‘this is where I once bought him a nice shirt’, ‘we once ate spag bol in that cafe’, ‘that’s the car park pay machine we’d go to together’, ‘this is where he’d wait for me when I went to the Ladies’, ‘that’s a book he would have liked’, ‘that’s the shop I bought some plastic flowers in for his grave’, ‘that’s the street I walked along back from town, the night he actually died in the hospital’… and so on!

I realise that this sort of thinking is becoming totally debilitating to me.  I’m annoyed by it, but can’t seem to stop.  John himself would be annoyed by it if he was here.  I have to get a grip on things, I know.  Put a giant pair of blinkers on, and just walk from A to B, do what I need to do, without thinking back constantly over everything, and being distracted by reminders.  Live for today, not in the past.