annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sam I’m going to write this down because it’s all there is. I feel OK as long as I’m engaged with something so I keep myself busy, but it’s been too busy and this knackeredness I’ve complained about forever is becoming overwhelming – I can’t think, or concentrate, or see to read unless it’s big writing and I’d forget my own name if it wasn’t at the top of the page (mostly). And it’s Sammie, of course it fucking is. Why do I feel I ought to be ‘over it’? Is it because she was ‘gone’ for so long before she died? It does seem like forever ago that we had her in our lives, busybodying about the place, organising the shit out of us, chatting on the phone at least once every day. She was so tiny, barely five foot tall, but she was such a big presence, funny, noisy, kind, silly. Clever, the cleverest of us all. I can’t bear it any more that she’s not here, that she really is gone really just GONE, won’t be coming back. I. Can’t. Bear. It. It’s like there’s a big jagged edged hole right in the centre of my belly, a huge gaping space, letting all the love out, filling it with regret and hurt, pain and sorrow. We feel the wrong shape without her, our little family. And they feel so precious, my darlings, too precious, I’m in danger of seeing them off with mental levels of fear for their safety, or maybe not, maybe I don’t contact them enough for trying to avoid overdoing it. I have to bite my tongue all the time for the dangers I see all around them. Oh, no don’t do that! Or that, or that or anything. Just sit over there where I can see you’re safe, still alive. Jenny just posted a thing: Coping with Grief during the Holidays and top of the list was “Talk about your grief. Don’t worry about bringing anyone down. You’re allowed to grieve and to talk about it.” So this is me talking about it, hoping it will help me in some way, because not talking about it isn’t good at all. So far my Christmas preparation has been to open the recipe book at the page for Christmas pudding, though I did buy a pudding basin to cook it in when I noticed mine had vanished. No presents yet, no cards, no tree. It all makes me shrivel up inside. How can we do all this without Sam? We can’t. Not how we used to. But we will. It will all come together, smaller, a bit quieter, but probably not much as we’re still noisy when we get together. If I don’t send you a Christmas card (and I won’t), it’s not because I don’t love you, or value your friendship, or appreciate your kindness, because I do, very much. I just can’t. Now I’m going to post this, get up off the sofa, get dressed and take that dog out before it gets dark (it’s not yet two pm so there’s time), and see how that goes 6:37 p.m. - 16.12.23 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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