It is not possible to adequately prepare for the loss of a life partner, not feasible to plan ahead for the distress of the first days and weeks, how best those early morning moments of searing anguish should be coped with. It is impractical to devise strategies for dealing with the little islands of regret where bare selfishness and self-absorption is laid out for all to witness. The only tangible comfort comes from those who have recently suffered similarly.
I find myself reaching out across the ether to Molly my warmly recalled very first friend and her responses fill the little holes that grief is making. And a call from Alison, one of the first people I met in this strange new country of nearly fifty years ago brings something almost like a moment of bliss simply because her recent widowhood means she recognises the shock and pain.
Almost as bad as the loss of Himself who was so wholeheartedly loved are the well-meaning offers of help that cause me to frequently decline to answer either landline or mobile. Sometimes, caught by surprise, I attempt to explain but my anxiously hovering helpers clearly feel such clarification doesn’t apply to them – persistent offers of meals out, beach walks, coffee meetings tumble from their tongues. Much worse, however, are those determined to `drop by’, `pop in’, to see me and I then whilst fighting rising irritation I search for words that decline these perturbing suggestions but don’t sound too rude, too dismissive. I shudder at the idea of visitors, of making civil conversation together with cups of tea, of half smiling and wondering just how long they are going to stay, when I will be rid of them, when I will simply be able to return to the security of wallowing in misery.
Philippa, currently fighting her own battles with a beloved husband’s serious accident and illness, points out how strangely comforting are those messages of support that state there is no need to respond – just know we are here if you need us, and thinking of you! How right she is – no need to turn down walks and talks and tea and picnicking, no necessity to couch refusals in a way that will not offend, no need for exasperation with the one or two who feel especially special and simply cannot accept that they too are being kicked to the kerb.
I have been more satisfied than was necessary that the Virus made it difficult for family to return for a funeral – so none took place, simply a cremation and the ashes returned to me. I have not had to gather the courage required to face all those intent upon telling me the extent of their sorrow to know of my loss.
I am content to simply consider my own wretchedness, to listen to Menuhin and Huberman and early recordings of La Traviata, to contemplate the poetry to Dylan Thomas and Wilfred Owen, to talk on the telephone to Sinead, drink endless cups of coffee with Patrick – and from time to time talk to Himself via his ashes. And I wonder if somewhere, somehow, some way he actually hears me.
