Photos from the bright summer of 2009 - taken in Robin's aunty's garden....in ours....at the allotment.
Tonight I want to remember hot days and deep colours and a taste of the life we knew before creeping illness and death in the wings overtook us.
I'm in the middle of reading an interview with Patrick O'Malley who has just published a book called "Getting Grief Right. Finding your Story of Love in the Sorrow of Loss".
He's challenging what he calls the 'emotional cages' of the widely accepted five stages of grief written about by Elizabeth Kubler Ross. Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. With the emphasis on final 'closure' or getting over it.
I'm glad about this because I haven't found any sense in them for myself...nothing linear or progressive about the process for me....only a swirling helix of all of them and none of them.
Patrick O'Malley's book 'offers no promise that grief will end. It won't help you get over your grief but it will help you to experience your sorrow in its purest form....not accept it.'
His strategy is to share your story. To have it witnessed. Received. Heard. For you to be acknowledged .
He encourages you to...
'embrace your story, to deepen your story because it may have got lost in the process of trying to make sure we got grief right, that we are doing it right.
So connect with your story....because you had a unique relationship with the one you lost. It starts with your unique attachment to the one who died. Then the depth of the feeling you have about the ABSENCE of that person starts to make sense.'
I know I have sometimes fallen into the trap of trying to get grief right.
Which fits with my much earlier core belief that as I'm not good enough I have to get it right - usually find out what the other person wants and try and give it to them - in order to be loved.
So it's relief to hear these words about the process of grieving. And actually it's also my experience ...no-one has ever said to me ( except myself) ...it's time to get over it. The reverse in fact ...that it can take years ....and it's not about that anyway. It's more about somehow integrating the loss and pain of Robin's death into my life so that it doesn't only ever just hurt and hurt in my present.
Day 10 of the course is
Loving your Body. Healing your Pain.
"Pain is a message to tell us something is off in our body.
Every pain is a teacher.
What is your pain trying to tell you?
Our body is our most loyal and sweet friend.
Allow yourself to listen to your body because it wants to get well.'
The pain I chose to work with today is the pain I often have in my stomach and gut.
And I uncovered the thought that I'm struggling with digesting the true and certain knowledge that Robin died and it's hard to stomach the fear of being alone now ...and in my future.
The affirmation I've been saying to myself on and off all today after my sister left - I've been resting and reading - mostly on the sofa - is
I return my body/mind to optimal health by giving it what it needs on every level.
I love my amazing body/mind.
And I've just noticed as I write this that instead of trying to work out what someone else needs, and try and please them and get it right to be loved, I only need to ask what my body wants and needs.
And listen to the answer I already know.
Love her.
Right now my lower back is hurting and asking me to rest and sleep. And that I can do.
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