12 days to go
Oct. 2nd, 2010 09:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stephbgIn 12 days time it will be the second anniversary of my brother's death. So much time and yet so little, but I remember hearing somewhere that it takes two years to properly process grief. I believe I've done that now, and yet I can still be surprised. At least now the surprises are not the shocks they used to be, and I suppose that's as good a measure of recovery as any.
By surprises I mean those moments when I would forget that he was gone; when I would see something in the shops and want to tell him about it. When I'd hear a joke and couldn't wait to share it, or enthuse together about something new on TV. Those moments are thankfully rare now, and the impact as my stupid brain catches up is not so hard to bear. The correction is no longer a shocking hammer blow to my heart, but a gentle sad squeeze.
But it happened again just recently as I did some early Christmas shopping. My list starts with Mum and Dad, then runs down the siblings and their partners and children in birth order, so Dave was always right near the top. The first Christmas without him was the day before his would-have-been 50th birthday on Boxing Day, so that one didn't really register. Christmas, as they say, was cancelled. So really it's just the once that I've not had to buy him a present, a cut-above-the-rest combined present because the poor lad was a December baby and got two together. It's happened just once in all the time he's been gone, and so I forgive myself for seeing something interesting that he would like and briefly forgetting that he was not here to enjoy it. I might need a few more goes to get the hang of that particular idea.
By surprises I mean those moments when I would forget that he was gone; when I would see something in the shops and want to tell him about it. When I'd hear a joke and couldn't wait to share it, or enthuse together about something new on TV. Those moments are thankfully rare now, and the impact as my stupid brain catches up is not so hard to bear. The correction is no longer a shocking hammer blow to my heart, but a gentle sad squeeze.
But it happened again just recently as I did some early Christmas shopping. My list starts with Mum and Dad, then runs down the siblings and their partners and children in birth order, so Dave was always right near the top. The first Christmas without him was the day before his would-have-been 50th birthday on Boxing Day, so that one didn't really register. Christmas, as they say, was cancelled. So really it's just the once that I've not had to buy him a present, a cut-above-the-rest combined present because the poor lad was a December baby and got two together. It's happened just once in all the time he's been gone, and so I forgive myself for seeing something interesting that he would like and briefly forgetting that he was not here to enjoy it. I might need a few more goes to get the hang of that particular idea.
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no subject
Date: 2010-10-02 02:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-02 04:19 pm (UTC)No, hang on...oh look I know what I mean. My Dad passed away not long ago too. It has left a shadow, and I feel for you as I know what it's like.
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Date: 2010-10-03 09:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-04 02:26 am (UTC)I know it gets easier to bear, and that in itself can also be painful.
*love for you*