It is nearly the end of 2018, and I have to say, I am relieved that it is almost behind us. This year has thrown more challenges at my little family than most, (yeah, yeah…. you’ve heard it all before…) but really it has probably been one of the most difficult years since 2013, which is the year that started me on my blogging journey. In September of 2013, www.neeedingablogging.com was born out of a desperate need to vent what I was feeling after losing my beautiful husband very suddenly the July of the same year. I have been reading through my old posts and it has brought out a very strange mixture of feelings in me. In some cases I can see just how far we have come since facing the most horrendous of adversities, and in others I can see just how little has changed in 5 years. This brings with it very mixed emotions for me. I am proud of the hurdles that the girls and I have jumped, but I am angry at how fractured it has left our lives. I often read posts from my fellow bereaved members of our Widow and Widower Support Group, and I feel saddened by how similar some of our stories have been. It is not simply a journey like that of a rollercoaster ride where it has ups and downs and twists and turns, but eventually comes to an end…. there is no end, it just changes form constantly and presents itself sporadically and very differently, but almost constantly in every aspect of our lives.
Yesterday I watched my youngest daughter singing her heart out in the choir as part of her primary schools Christmas outing at multiple shopping centres. I watched on proudly and videoed way too much. In about song six my eldest daughter pointed out a lovely man Face timing his partner so that she could watch their child live, and I grabbed my phone out to Face time Trenton so he could share this proud moment with me. I have not done this once in the five years since he died. I have gone to message him many times, and called him a thousand times in the early days whilst his voicemail was still active….. and I have obviously thought about him often, sometimes forgetting (or not wanting to believe) that he is gone. But this was a whole new low for me. The realisation of what I had just done had me holding back tears for the next few songs. That lump that grows in your throat when you are barely holding it together just sat there reminding me of how stupid I was until the end of their set, and then I just went about my day. But the memory of excitedly grabbing my phone to surprise my daughters Dad while he was at work will not leave my mind.
It reminded me of how little she was when he was actually still alive, she was in Prep when he died, and now she is going into her last year of Primary school. She has lived almost half of her life without him now. This year I have noticed that the girls grieving is so much deeper than ever before. Whilst they keep it fairly private, they do not share it with most people (other than me), and not even their Step father. It saddens me to think of the kids in our support group that lost their parent before they ever knew them to have their own memories of that person in their mind. I think the girls are mourning and grieving more what they would have had with him now, and less what they had with him then. Obviously what they had then is all of their memories of him and there is no comparison, but grieving the “what could have been’s” is quite horrendous to watch.
Every year I feel like perhaps the following year will be “our year…….” but come December, I seem to be reflecting on yet another challenging time, and I wonder, “is this it”? I read through years of my blogs and I just know that life was so hard in those first few years following Trent’s death, and I still wonder how we are all still standing…. so why does it feel like no matter how hard we try, something always prevents us all from being truly happy again.
With my eldest having almost an entire year of exceptionally poor mental health and so many visits to Emergency I can’t even count them, I am surprised that with a roughly 30% attendance rate she is passing year 9. She has also (without meaning to) put a strain on this family that has possibly irreversibly screwed us. And with my youngest still suffering anxiety about everything, and even having mini panic attacks over the strangest of things – I just wonder, will next year be their year? Our year?
I do feel sometimes like nothing has ever been easy again…… or wonderful, or blissful, or relaxing, or care free….. is this normal? I have a wonderful relationship (that has been pushed to limits beyond the wildest imagination) and a beautiful home, wonderful friends and a fantastic job. What am I missing? Is it possible that once you have lost a person such as Trenton, that nothing will ever taste or feel as incredible ever again?
I feel so selfish for even thinking it, so please 2019, prove me wrong.
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