Mr C and I didn’t really bother with Valentine’s Day. He used to think it was just Hallmark’s way of making money. Occasionally we might grab a takeaway or send a card, but other than that there was no fuss. But it didn’t mean that we didn’t love each other. It just meant that we didn’t need a particular day to show it. Yet this year, I’m thinking more about love and all that goes with it. What it means to me. What I’ve learnt about it throughout my grief.
Both my bereavement counsellors have asked me what I miss most about Mr C. Each time, the answer to that has been simple. Him. I just miss him. I can’t single one thing out. But for a while now, I’ve realised that I’m missing something else. For a long time after he died, I felt numb. I felt dead inside. I missed him. I missed everything about him. The person. The man, the myth, the legend. Stuart “Charlie” Charlesworth. But as I’ve started to emerge from this numbness, I’m realising that I’m missing something else too.
I first started emerging from my numbness a few months back. I know exactly when it was, although at the time, I didn’t realise quite what was happening. It was when a friend was doing me a favour. It was one of those weeks when you just can’t make diaries match and the only time we could get together was one evening. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve seen him in the daytime over the past couple of years, but never of an evening. And as we firmed up plans, I suddenly realised that this was the first time since Mr C died that I’d be having male company of an evening. Yes, I’d had evenings with friends in couples (or groups when permitted) and friends or family had been round of an evening while my daughter was still up, but in just over 18 months I hadn’t had a one-on-one evening with a man.
I can’t begin to explain how nice it was to just sit for a bit and chat over a cuppa. But as he got ready to leave, I started to feel scared. I couldn’t really comprehend why. But this feeling of knowing he was going to go home and leave me on my own just hit me. I didn’t want to be on my own. I just didn’t want to be on my own. I wanted to sit and talk to someone all night. I wanted adult company. In that split second, I realised just how much I’d missed adult company of an evening. How much I’d missed male company. Now of course, this is me. So, my brain completely overthought all of this and went from zero to 100 in a matter of milliseconds. My brain started over analysing these (perfectly normal) feelings. I barely slept. I couldn’t work out why, from what felt like nowhere, this realisation and these feelings had hit me. And so, I did what all “sensible” people who are going through times like this do, I buried it. I tried to pretend I hadn’t felt any of it. I didn’t even really talk to my counsellor about it. Because I knew to do so would be to unlock something I wasn’t quite ready to. Something I hadn’t realised I’d be needing to deal with.
But subconsciously, it’s been there ever since. I joked with a friend over Christmas as to whether I could borrow her husband once a month on a Tuesday. She laughed and queried why just a Tuesday. So, I explained. It’s the day I do an exercise class, the bins need putting out, my daughter needs help with homework, and I have to cook dinner. It would just be nice to have an adult in the house to do some of these things. To put the bins out and sort dinner while I’m out for an hour. To just take the pressure off me doing it all. Again, those feelings were sneaking up on me. I really was starting to miss something else. Something more than just Mr C as a person.
And then at the start of this year, I looked after the daughter of some very good friends. She’s my daughter’s BFF, she came round for a sleepover and they spent the following day together. Absolutely no bother at all. Yet when her dad came to pick her up, he stood on my doorstep with some flowers to say thank you. Totally unnecessary, but very lovely, nonetheless. But it completely unnerved me to see a man on my doorstep with a bunch of flowers. It threw me. I couldn’t think of the last time a man had given me flowers that weren’t linked to the death of my husband. A little gesture. But unbeknown to him, it came at a time when so much was going through my head about gestures, love, and companionship. It was another little thing that made me stop and think. Those feelings I’d been trying to bury were getting closer and closer to the surface.
And it’s funny what brings them to the surface and forces you to deal with them. Because that’s happened now. Over the past few weeks, a rather amazing friend has been helping me out by doing some decorating for me. He’s without question one of the best friends a girl could ask for. The sort of person you’d be genuinely lost without if he wasn’t in your life. The sort of friend you can have banter with, be sarcastic to and very rarely complimentary to. So much so, should he read this, he’ll no doubt pass out at me being so publicly nice about him. But it’s all true, I’m so lucky to have him and will be eternally grateful to him for his friendship and how he’s looked out for me (fairly sure this is what he told me to write if ever I mentioned him in a blog.) Told you. Our friendship is one of sarcasm.
Anyway. I digress. He was at my house the day I went to my first funeral since Mr C’s. At the same crematorium. With the same funeral director. I was absolutely done in by the time I got home. But having an adult there to talk to made the world of difference. Having an adult realise that all I really needed was a hug, helped immensely. Just having another adult in the house to talk to has been immensely helpful. It came at a time that I was missing going to the office and seeing people, so it was a godsend to have him here. There was one day that he finished early, and I went downstairs to discover his mug on the worksurface. Now, just to clarify, I don’t usually expect tradesmen to put their mugs in the dishwasher, but he doesn’t really count, and so, I sent him a message having a dig. When he was next back, I finished work and came down to find his mug in the dishwasher. It really made me smile that he’d thought to do this. I may also have moaned (ever so slightly) when on a day of calls, I rushed downstairs in a five-minute gap to make him a cuppa, only to discover that he’d already made himself one. And not me. Again. I don’t normally expect tradesmen to make me a drink. But again I, obviously, wound him up about this. In nearly two years, I think I can count on one hand the occasions when I’ve been working and someone else has made me a cuppa. So, on another day, when I was again back-to-back, he sent a text asking if I’d like a drink and brought it up to my office in my Mrs Jason Donovan mug. He subsequently did this without even asking. What more could I ask for?!
But all these examples. The thoughtfulness. The flowers. The Tuesday evening juggle. They’ve really got me thinking. Add them to the feelings that started to emerge a few months back and it’s forced me to stop and think. About what else I’m feeling and missing. It’s more than just “simply him.” It’s more than just a physical person. I’m missing a companion. I’m missing our relationship. I’m missing all the little things that go hand in hand with having someone by your side. The someone to talk to when you’ve had a long day. The thoughtfulness. The little gestures. The bringing me home a packet of Haribo because he knew how much I liked them. The unexpected bunch of flowers, just because. The person who would listen to what you were saying when they’d done something which wound you up, and try not to do it again. The teamwork. The splitting of responsibilities. Knowing someone was there no matter what. I’ve lost all of that as well as him as a person.
And that feeling I tried to bury and not deal with? The reason I didn’t want my friend to leave that evening? That feeling that I wasn’t ready to unlock a few months back? It is, quite simply, one of feeling alone. Loneliness.
I find it incredibly hard to admit to this. To be able to say out loud “I feel lonely.” Because I’m surrounded by so many amazing and wonderful people. Yet, despite them, there are no two ways about it. I’m on my own for the first time in adulthood. I’m responsible for every single decision. Nobody says goodnight to me when I go to bed. And as I’m working through my grief, feeling less deadened and devoid of emotion, I’m having to acknowledge what this feeling is and how it makes me feel. Because I can feel it now. And it’s hard. It’s painful. I also think there’s a perception that loneliness is only really associated with the older generation, but hey, isn’t that meant to be the case with widowhood too? But my reality is that I am on my own. Being lonely is a new feeling that I need to learn to adjust to and live with. I’ve entered a new phase of my grief.
I’d love nothing more than to wave a magic wand and have this feeling go away. But I actually know I need to become comfortable with it. It’s why I’m not about to go on the hunt for, or try to find, a new relationship to quell this loneliness. I’m really not. Far from it. Because it’s all part of what I need to go through to be me and understand who I am now. To be able to know and love myself again. It’s why my first new love in this next chapter of my story is writing. Because it’s helping me to work through so much. It’s helping me to love and remember who I am.
Plus, as I’ve said to my daughter, I’m acutely aware that it’ll be a tricky task finding someone who would even be willing to put up with me. And the Jason Donovan obsession. And all the baggage that I’ll come with. And there’s not exactly been a queue of men at the front door! Yet, while this may sound like a jovial discussion, it’s another one of those conversations that I sincerely wish we hadn’t had to have. We had it after watching yet another Christmas film with a dead parent (do you know how many of these there are?!) The mum in the film had started a new relationship and my daughter told me she doesn’t want that to be me. So, we had to have a chat. When I told her that I will always love her daddy, she couldn’t comprehend how this would be possible if I also love someone else. That’s incredibly hard for a child to understand. If I’m honest, I don’t really understand how it would work. But it would have to.
Because it’s how it will always be. I don’t envisage a day when I won’t love Mr C. I don’t envisage a day when I wouldn’t want to. But I’ve also come to realise that I like the feeling of companionship. Of being part of something. I miss it. And so, despite the love that I will always have for him, I’m also beginning to acknowledge that it’s possible that I may want a new relationship. I may meet someone else. I can’t 100% promise my daughter that it won’t happen. Because none of us know what the future holds. The last two years have taught me that. There is no point planning and stressing about the future. Someone very wise has been trying to get me to accept this lately, and I simply have to. Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed.
It’s why when my daughter and I finished our chat, I reassured and promised her that if, one day, someone does come into our lives, they’re going to have to be a pretty special person. They’re going to have to be one in a million. Because they’re going to have to accept that Mr C will always, always be a part of our lives. He’s not a part of my story to be shut away, never to be spoken of again. That’s not how love and grief work. My grief and my love for him will be forever intertwined.
So, as I sit here on a day to celebrate love, no matter how lonely I am, I know that I wouldn’t want it any other way. When he first died, I remember telling people that I would never, ever have another relationship. Because I couldn’t contemplate the thought of going through this pain again. But what I’ve come to accept and realise is that I only feel the pain and loneliness I do because of love. And that makes me lucky. Because I’ve known a love so great, that my pain, grief and loneliness are also so great. They’re the price I’m paying for our love. And without a shadow of a doubt, I’ll be paying it forever. Because my love for him will never die. Whatever the future may bring.
Life is a rollercoaster 