A Grief Remembered: Evenings and mornings..............June 2011

A Grief Remembered: Evenings and mornings..............June 2011

Evenings and mornings..............June 2011

The evenings are long now, and the last of the light hardly fades before midnight.

I always have a camera handy, Matt, which can irritate some people............! But it's as if I have to capture the moments.............

I took this photo just before 11.00pm one evening this week, as I was closing the upstairs blinds for the night.

I stood and thought of you, as I always do.

There is only a short span between nightfall and dawn at this time of year.

As I'd watched the last of the glow on the horizon, so I was awake when the first blackbird began his song,and the fingers of the new day crept into the garden from the east. It was hardly 4.00am.

Is it an indulgence to miss you so keenly?

Gone from the earth in a matter of minutes.............I remember then in the days and weeks that followed, the gazing at the sky each evening and thinking "Matt's no longer on this earth"

And the vastness of the skies at night, with their myriads of stars, mirrored a huge deep void in me. Lonely skies, quiet in their far away-ness................ unreachable on their outer limits..........like I cannot reach you now.

I hide.

People don't really want to hear the same thing over and over again...................or is it that I feel somehow I've failed to "move on"?

Nothing can ever alter what happened, and nothing can ever alter my inward loneliness and longing after you.

It is always there...................evenings and mornings............................

Yes, our lives go on, yes, I am so excited about our first grandchild, but it comes with the loss.............in the joyful family events of marriages and births, anniversaries, birthdays, there is one person missing who should be there.

So, evenings and mornings I think of you , and myriads of times in between.

And tomorrow, we go to Cornwall, and we will remember you in the place in which you lay...............................

Your 35th birthday is coming up on Saturday 23rd April 2011

Hello Matthew,

Here I am again! Not doing too good this week, but that is how it goes some times................

I love this photo of you.

I can see your eyelashes and your fine hair.

And almost rub the stubble on your chin.

Feel the warmth of your breath as you give me a hug...............................

I miss you.

Sometimes something triggers the underground well of grief, and on Sunday evening I was in church with your dad, when I became aware of the blue flashing lights of emergency vehicles shining in through one of the windows.

It was a trigger.

8.40pm on a Sunday evening is the time we will never forget.

And we were in church then too.

So seeing those lights, suddenly brought the memory of that other fateful night back to the fore....

And as the last song began, it happened to be the one we sang at your Thanksgiving.

I simply felt the whole floodgates open and I sobbed, until I could sob no more. The pain was as overwhelming as it had been in the days and weeks after you were killed.

It was so immediate and real.

I love you so much, and miss you so much it cannot be measured.

So as always after that happens, and the pain has burnt itself out for awhile, I am exhausted. Even now, after 4 and a half years.

But I know it will always be so.

Most of the time I can get on with living, and remember you with a smile, and enjoy the world around me. Meeting friends, gardening, reading, the everyday routines which are part of daily life, still making progress with my French, which I began when I thought one day you would end up working in a French speaking country.

You would be amazed now Matt, at how well I can converse!

A lot has happened again since your last birthday.

Grandad's funeral, James's wedding, your Uncle Andrew's Ordination as a Baptist minister, and now your brother is going to be a dad!

And I am going to be "Granny Sellers" !!

And your dad a grandad!!

You would've been a brilliant uncle.

Next week we will all be at the wedding of your cousin Sarah in Skipton. Another special

day without you.......................................

And oh, Matt, how you would've loved the spring sunshine we are having just now. The cherry trees have never looked so beautiful, the back birch tree is in leaf, and in the grounds of the school opposite here, a lovely white flowering cherry planted in your memory, blossomed early.

The birds are in full voice.................................

I miss you. Forever

Your mumxx

Poem for Matt written in 2008

Poem for Matt

There's a hole in the world

Where you used to be.

It is perfectly shaped in your form,

A vacuum, but it's there.

Like reaching into the space where you

Lived and breathed.

It's a mocking illusion.

There's a hole in me

Where you used to be

Gaping,raw,aching,

Arms cannot wrap around space.

There's a hole everywhere I turn

It travels with me silently

Wherever I go

It is always with me

A reminder of all that we have lost

And, on returning, the memories

Burning

Down the years where you were real

Tangible,loved, living, breathing.

There are holes in the world

I recognise others-

Children lost forever

Parents who grieve

Over what might have been.....................

And now snatched away

Suddenly,

Leaving only brokenness.

There's a sadness in their eyes

Like a reflection

From a deep well

Of pain

Hidden but always there....

Surfacing at times to overflow.

And it goes on until

We leave a hole in the world."

Mothering Sunday 2011

My mum and dad with Matthew near their home in Rawtenstall.

I still find Mothering Sunday so hard and once again this past year more changes in our lives. I feel the loss of my dad keenly. My mum died in 1990.

And there are still times when I need to write about Matthew more than others.

I've ceased caring what others think about it.

He was my flesh and blood, carried for 9 months and a wonderful gift.

How can I not feel that loss above all others so deep, so vast, so forever.

And the wonderful news about our first grandchild, due to arrive in the autumn, has stirred so many memories. They come unbidden to the surface.........

How it felt to hold him, his smell, his smile, his tiny fingers and toes, his cuddliness, and warmth.....his aliveness.

This year we will be on our own on Mothering Sunday, as our son lives in Bristol, with his lovely wife, soon to be another family unit, with two cousins already living nearby, and close family on the doorstep.

Then the grief is strong. The emptiness of my life where Matt used to be, and now there is only a sense of his life in Birmingham, impressions of him, stirrings of the voice which used to speak to me, and living not far away.

So I have closed my Facebook account today, for the time being, to take refuge in other words.

I could not face the Mother's Day wishes that I would inevitably read there , on a day when I will not see either of my sons.

Cowardly?

No, I need to be able to sometimes have the strategies for dealing with how I feel.

It is always the special days that are the hardest.

Birthdays, Christmas, Anniversaries.......and each one who knows loss says the same.

Being a mother is the deepest, most profound experience, and having physically given birth, the bond is one which is absolute.

It goes on forever.

Leaving a legacy.

I have recently watched again Matt's Thanksgiving service on dvd.

It took place on 22nd September 2006, 5 days after my dad's 88th birthday and 7 days before Alan's 22nd birthday.

It was a very moving experience, and as it was only the second time I had watched it in 4 years hardly surprising.

I also found it comforting to see how full the church was and the many people young and old, who had made a special journey to be there.

There were around 450+

The many conversations afterwards, and in later months and years, stories filtered down about people who had reassessed their lives and made changes.

A life cut off at 30 made them think of what they considered to be vital to their own................

But the thing which grabbed me most of all was what Matt had considered important in his life.

His faith, and his care of others, came to the fore, not to mention the sense of humour which would have him rolling round the floor laughing at times!!

All this made me smile.

And remember.

So if you read this I hope it makes you think...........

Matt left a legacy...................long may it bear fruit.

Legacy by Nicole Nordemann

I don't mind if you've got something nice to say about me

And I enjoy an accolade like the rest
You could take my picture and hang it in a gallery
Of all who's who and so-n-so's that used to be the best
At such'n'such ... it wouldn't matter much

I won't lie, it feels alright to see your name in lights
We all need an 'Atta boy' or 'Atta girl'
But in the end I'd like to hang my hat on more besides
The temporary trappings of this world

I want to leave a legacy
How will they remember me?
Did I choose to love? Did I point to You enough
To make a mark on things?
I want to leave an offering
A child of mercy and grace who
blessed your name unapologetically
And leave that kind of legacy

I don't have to look too far or too long awhile
To make a lengthly list of all that I enjoy
It's an accumulating trinket and a treasure pile
Where moth and rust, thieves and such will soon enough destroy

Not well traveled, not well read, not well-to-do or well bred
Just want to hear instead, "Well Done" good and faithful one...

Listening to the clock............August 2010

When I have had my breakfast, I like to sit in our back room, looking out at the garden, and then I open my Bible.

Quiet moments.........................

Special moments......................

I am privileged to have the time to spend reading and then in prayer.

These moments have become even more special during the past 4 years, (next month) since Matt's death.

A marshalling of thoughts, and a renewal of strength.

And do I need it still at times, to go on.

All this is now taking place alongside the ticking of dad's clock. A nice symmetry in that. He bought it not long after the death of my mum at the age of 70, in August 1990. He said it was like a friend, and helped him to cope with the silence of the evenings.

And now it is a reminder of them both.

So this morning before I sat down I wandered up the garden, and sniffed the air. There was a nip in it, and a sense of approaching autumn.

I used to love the onset of autumn, the richness of the colours, and the sharpness of the light. Some apples lay on the ground, fallen from our ancient tree. It has produced a good crop this year. They are surprisingly sweet.

I know every inch of that garden, and love grubbing about in the earth and pruning bushes and trimming the rampant hedges!!

But the nip in the air and the indefinable subtle shift in the colours of the shrubs and leaves made my heart lurch....................................................

September approaches.

And what do people say at times, after 4 years have almost passed, on 10th September, 2010

" Time heals"

" It gets better as time goes on"

"The sense of loss decreases"

" You are 'moving on' "

" Life goes on"

Well, I can categorically say

" No, time does not heal, and never will. The wound is still there, not as raw, but each morning and evening it makes it's presence felt"

" In lots of ways it does indeed get better, but it will never ever be the same without my son"

"Yes, I am moving on, that is how it should be, and I have no choice, the alternative would be not to live anymore, and that is an easy option"

" Life goes on............................all around, the ups and downs, the good times, better times, difficult times, joyful ones, downright bad ones, life will always go on........................we have to choose to face it head on"

For that I have my special moments each day, wherever possible, and a Saviour who suffered for me brings me comfort.

Autumn beckons

Edges of leaves beginning to appear in subtler moods of russet reds

Landscapes of rolling corn, yellow against an inky dark storm-approaching sky, lit by a decreasing sun-strength.

Birds are quiet

Fledglings flown

Fruit trees weighed down

And the waves break over the rocks where you are hidden.....................

The seagulls wheel overhead

Autumn beckons...............................

My heart lurches with the memory

So it will be because when we love deeply,

We inwardly mourn deeply, hidden from the world,

In a private place,

Our own thoughts

Of a baby nestled close

First laugh

First step

First word

First birthday

First friend

First school

First "I love you mum"

First heartbreak

First prayer

First home

First car

..................................................

30th birthday.

Last day.

10th September 2006

So, my heart tells me what I already know,

September beckons.