The one year mark

 It is been one year since I last saw you, since we held hands, or I laid my head on your chest, since I waited for you at the train station as you arrived from work, or waited for you by the front door.

It has been 1 year, a whole year where I have not messaged you early in the morning asking what you wanted for dinner, you used to tease me about it...my love for food.

In this whole year I have made all the decisions for our family and you have not been here to balance the decision, to make it easier or sometimes to quite frankly piss me off, because I am a doer and you were a planner. I have not shared the joys or the lows.

The children have grown but you were not here to witness. They have scored goals at football but you were not here to cheer them up, or to see  what confident swimmers they have become.

They have me, a one woman band trying to coordinate life and family. No cheers, no support, no hugs and I feel for the children and for myself because we are all terribly young to deal with loss.

There is a list of things...and I could go on and on. Let losses fill the pages of my book. 

But I don't want loss to be my life legacy or yours. I fill my life with the new adventures, laugh and love but I am not emptying my life of you. We have this invisible attachment, you are my souvenir.  I still tender to your garden, and your most precious flowers, Luca and Lottie.

Let me tell you that I think I would have made you proud, as for my tenacity and determination have allowed us to come this far. I wish you were here to tell me you are proud but this is the life that we have now, so while I don't hear your words I carry on with my compass of family, memories and love. The love that we created is also the reason it hurts not to have you. A full circle of life without you.

I worry that the passage of time that smooths the sharp edges of grieve will also fade my memories of you. Will I remember your voice and your smell? 

My widow friend said that the one year mark is like dividing waters, you reach the bottom and it gives you the impulse to come to the surface again, to breath. 

My only desire now is to recalibrate my life in a way that allows always more light than darkness, always more happy memories than sad, always moving forward and not being stuck. I wish we could be making these new memories with you, but I cannot reclaim our old life. 

I imagine my grief will evolve and jostle for space, occasionally colliding with my new life, until they coexist more peacefully.

I am still unwavering in my resolution that we will get through this, that the children will grow strong and that if you were here you'd say to me : You haven't done bad at all.