grief

Equal time on the planet

Posted on by Cathy Penman

Today is a significant day/date which I have sort of been waiting for for six and a half years.

Up until today I have been able to say, John still outlived me, he still had longer on the planet than me (because he was older).

But today the day has come when I have been alive the same amount of time that he had in total (59 years, 131 days). So today is the equivalent day for me, to the one where his life ended. So after today, if I’m still here (unless he ‘comes to get me’), I will be living with the awareness that I’ve actually lived longer than him. I think that will add to my grief.

I am scared for myself, because he died aged 59 – why should I not also? I don’t deserve to be the one who survived longer.

So how to pass this horrible day without being too profound, and too scared, and too sad?

At least one of the two of us is still here to have these thoughts, and make these comments.

Poor, dear John, I wish you were still here to enjoy life with me. xxx

Dear John, 6 years on

Posted on by Cathy Penman

Dear John

Well, in the same way it’s so weird that you didn’t know about Brexit, you also completely missed a world-wide pandemic (tautology!), with a virus having killed well over a hundred thousand people in the UK alone.  So far I have escaped it.  I have wondered whether you would have survived it; it might have taken you just a few years later anyway.  I’ve also wondered whether it was a factor in your ‘unknown infections’ whilst in hospital; could it have been Covid back then?

We are still in a national lockdown which means no travelling round the country, no holidays abroad, no restaurants or retail outlets open, no zoos or stately homes to visit, no big events to go to like the country shows, or Crufts or racing.  Also I have not been able to socialise at all, look for new friends etc, so have felt very very isolated and often scared.

Because I’m in a new area, my grief has come back quite a bit.  If I walk by the sea on a rough and rainy day, I think, John would have liked this.  Every time I see old couples together holding hands, I think, that should have been us – we would have stayed together so I would have been in a life-long relationship, growing old together (didn’t happen).  I come across historical things locally and think, would John have known about that?  What would John have thought about everything that’s happening and where I’ve ended up?  (Well, I’ve moved but still not sure I won’t move again; it wasn’t the dream perfect location, it was just having to choose somewhere, anywhere, in a panic, because I’d moved out of the old house and had nowhere to live!)

The worst thing is living alone in a new house, with a lot of our things still around me – the same sofas, the same bed at the moment, the same pictures on the walls, the same books and CDs etc.  I can’t help thinking how sad it is that I can’t show you my house, take you on a tour.  Look, this is where I put our old bookshelves, this is where I’m keeping your artworks, our bookmarks collection.  What would you have thought of this house, John?  Would you have approved of it?  Would you be jealous to see me living here now?  Yes, of course you would have wanted more life also.  I picture you sometimes – that’s where John would have sat, in the porch, reading a newspaper, enjoying the retirement he never had.

I’m supposed to be looking forwards not back, but it’s difficult when you’re alone all the time not to feel sad and sentimental.

All my love xxx

Dear John, 4 years on

Posted on by Cathy Penman

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Dear John

Went to the Cemetery today and took flowers to your grave and the flower room.  Put a card saying I miss you and think about you.  Feel very sad that there’s no-one else to visit or care, so no-one will even see the flowers or the card but me.

What’s news here?  My (our) house is under offer and I’ve been househunting, but am still very confused and undecided about where to go and what to do with my future.

I’ve just come back from Pembroke, John, where I looked at 6 beautiful houses.  I can see myself starting a new life there, but it’s not going to happen.  Nothing feels right.

Little John – your proxy – came to Wales with me.  I even took him out as I drove over the Severn bridge to show him the view – dangerous and silly in many ways; you’d’ve been annoyed with me.

I keep seeing things I want to tell you about.

There’s one particular house down a path which I often drive past, that we looked at years ago when we were househunting, and I just saw it’s been extended hugely.  It was shared history, something I would’ve wanted to update you on.

The weirdest thing is that on the site of the Pizzaland opposite East Croydon Station, where we actually first met all those years ago, they are building a giant building – there are two ‘cores’ that keep getting higher and higher.  I want to tell you – hey, can you believe what they’re doing at our special spot?  All the people who might live or work in that building will never know that there used to be a Pizzaland there where a couple once met, and stayed together 29 years, til he d….  Every time I see those two tall cores, it’s like they are a (secret/private) memorial to our relationship.

It’s very weird that you missed the whole Brexit thing.  I think you would have been so interested cos you were into politics and it’s all ‘history in the making’ – which is why you said you liked watching live football matches!  It’s bothered me a bit that whilst I think I know what your position/opinion on Brexit would have been (same as mine) – I can’t be 100% sure.  I’ll never know.

I went to Italy for Christmas, John, and left a copy of A Widow’s Words in the hotel library/bookshelf.  I noticed the next day it was gone already, so someone at least has perhaps been reading about you.  I’ve also done the legal deposit thing, so at least there are six copies lying in libraries for posterity.  Maybe someone will read about you in 100 years time.

My plan for the rest of today is to start packing our 4000 books.  Everyone tells me I can’t keep so many, but they (most of them) are your property, things you acquired and wanted over the years.  It will be painful to be putting them in boxes and thinking how you should still be here to enjoy them.  But I’ve been so ‘stuck’.  I haven’t touched the nice ones in the front room for 4 years, they are still as you arranged them.  Probably if you were here you would be amazed I hadn’t moved house sooner.

So, still struggling on with my own problems, pretty depressed, John, and realising how much of it is still grief.  Have stopped adding to this site cos of crushing bad feeling that no-one looks at it anyway, so I guess it’s just a private diary.

Missing you.  xx

(Little John sends his love.)

(He says he’s trying to look after me but it’s a big job.)

PS The cuddly red dragon in the photo is called Henry because Henry VII was born in Pembroke Castle, which fact the probability of your having known I would estimate at about 70%.

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Nuthatch Grove

Posted on by Cathy Penman

LJ at NG

In A Widow’s Words I wrote about the several significant places where I scattered some of my dear John’s hair – for example at Hever Castle, and in St Moritz.  There was one more place I wanted to do it, and I finally addressed this the other day.

It’s a place we loved at Wakehurst Place, a clearing in the woods where birds come to feed.  I saw that it’s really called the Himalayan Glade, but we called it Nuthatch Grove.

I wrote about it in People and Places – here’s a link to that chapter: Nuthatch Grove

So I went and did it, managed to spend some time there alone (though it was quite busy with people despite being quite isolated).  I took ‘Little John’ and got some photos.  All very sad and sentimental.

Amazingly, I really did get several sightings of a nuthatch, so it’s a pretty reliable place to see them.  It’s a tiny bird that flits about so quickly and never seems to rest long in one place, so even if I’d had a proper camera it would have been difficult to get a good shot – below is the best I got on my phone camera.

I don’t know if I’ll ever go there again… too painful.  Very beautiful though.

Nuthatch crop

 

Insensitivity

Posted on by Cathy Penman

Arundel castle

I don’t really hold it against the poor woman, but yesterday I came across the worst insensitivity I’ve experienced in three and a half years, with respect to my position.

I was walking around Arundel Castle and Gardens all day alone, and at the end, heading for the exit, chatted to an older lady who was also (so I thought) on her own.  But then she announced, “My husband’s round here somewhere.  If he doesn’t turn up – if he’s fallen off the ramparts or something – I’ll be going home a widow!”

You’d think it might have crossed her mind that the woman on her own she was talking to might ACTUALLY be a widow!

It really made me flinch.

I just don’t think, even if I hadn’t had the experience myself, that I would ever make a remark like that to another woman on her own – just in case.  I would have been aware of the possibility and been sensitive.

The castle is wonderful, by the way.  Gorgeous views of the countryside and the sea from the keep.  The narrowest spiral staircase I’ve ever experienced.  Sumptuous and historically interesting rooms and corridors, especially the great hall and the library and the bedrooms.

And the gardens are so unexpected, so varied and unusual and pretty.  Beautiful pathways, features and fountains.  Beautiful lawns and colourful flowers, all with the backdrop of the Cathedral beyond the wall.

A delightful attraction I would definitely recommend, and  a lovely day out in the sunshine.

I went home a widow.

Little John at Arundel

https://arundelcastle.org/

 

 

After ‘The Death of Marat’

Posted on by Cathy Penman

Bath ss

Sharing with you this photo I took some years ago as a joke, to show John – referencing the famous painting The Death of Marat (1793), below.

It’s such a sensitive painting for me.  It had some significance for John, some humourous idea he had had that referred to it.  We used to comment on it – it’s often used or referenced in other contexts.

Of course dreadfully difficult in my circumstances now, I hate it really – but nevertheless, having come across my photo above, I wanted to show someone.

It sort of provides an example of how intellectual our relationship was (and what I’ve lost).

http://muddycolors.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/artist-of-month-jacques-louis-david.html

 

 

Another Spring

Posted on by Cathy Penman

Daffodils 2018.jpg

Well the snow and cold weather are over (I hope) and I’ve suddenly been surprised by Spring!  These are daffodils in St James’s Park.

It’s brought with it a resurgence of grief – back to that horror of thinking that the person who was closest to you, who you were sharing your life with, has been snatched away, and will never see a spring again, will never see daffodils again.

I was shocked to think that it’s my fourth spring already since it happened – that I’ve seen four springs now on my own – and cried over the fact he’s no longer here with me.

We used to sit and look at blue skies together, and comment on how the enjoyment of the sky and nice weather didn’t depend on one’s wealth, how anyone could have that pleasure.  Now looking at a blue sky is difficult, because of feeling my loss of him, and his loss of being able to ever see the sky again.

It’s such a morbid thought, but for every one of us there will be the spring after we’ve gone, the first of those that we’ll never see.

Somebody else will be looking at daffodils (and maybe remembering us).

 

 

 

Programmes I don’t watch

Posted on by Cathy Penman

These are TV programmes that we used to watch together, or he used to watch a lot, so I no longer ever watch them because it feels too sensitive, like that was another life:

  • Have I Got News For You
  • QI
  • Mock The Week
  • Only Connect
  • Doc Martin
  • Mastermind
  • University Challenge

These are programmes that I have started to watch again on my own, even though they are sensitive:

  • Family Guy (But never the musical introduction/theme song, because that was such a shared thing)
  • Would I Lie To You (I like this so much and it cheers me up)

(But how can I just return to watching things we used to watch, like nothing’s happened?  It’s not easy.   How can something so massive have happened to you, and yet the rest of the world, trivial things, just carry on the same?)

 

Comparing Cinderellas

Posted on by Cathy Penman

Over the past few weeks I’ve been comparing two versions of a ballet – Prokofiev’s Cinderella.  One was a traditional version from Amsterdam, Dutch National Ballet, one a recording of the Matthew Bourne version set during the war, which I saw recently at Sadlers Wells but which was also on TV over Christmas.

The music doesn’t directly correlate as you switch between the two, but I’ve certainly become very familiar with bits of it.  I don’t know if I could say which of the productions I preferred, probably the more traditional one, but only by a bit, and both had interesting scenes and ideas.  For example in the Dutch version I particularly loved the groups of four seasons dancers, in different colours, bright green for spring, yellow for summer, red for autumn, then blue/white for winter, with the trees reflecting the same colours, so pretty.  And also how the trying on of the shoe was done, with a whole row of dancers moving forward by one on a row of chairs, with each one doing something slightly different or comical when it came to their turn.  And in the Matthew Bourne I liked particular moments, like the angel all in silver suddenly appearing on a mantelpiece, and the way the stepmother and family do a funny walk together in the hospital scene, so evocative and so cleverly matching the music.

I’m only just starting to bear to be able to listen to emotional classical music again.  The music of the final scene – I’ve just watched the ending of both versions, not an actual proper dance between the couple but a staged happy ending – when it comes in is SO affecting and emotional, it’s like the Rosenkavalier duet at the end, just magical, all ‘twinkly’, stunning how a piece of music can bring out such feelings in your heart you can hardly express, well done Prokofiev!

Just another musical comment.  It’s a well known thing in classical music and opera for example, that the tempo at which things were taken used to be slower in the past and in modern productions can be faster.  John and I used to discuss this a lot, he had an amazing feel for tempo and we both tended to agree about a preferred tempo.  In general, personally, I often prefer the more ‘old fashioned’ speed, and sometimes find things taken much too fast (many examples I could give in opera).  But listening to the main Cinderella theme repeated at the end of these two ballets – in the traditional one it was played over the credits, in the Bourne there was a wonderful danced curtain call – I really felt the traditional tempo was just that bit too slow and laborious, whereas it was much better, to my ears ‘right’, in the more modern version.

I felt so so sad that my partner that I used to be able to talk to about this sort of thing was gone – and so so sure that he would have agreed with me about the tempo, and about the astonishing musical beauty of the ending.