The telephone call you never want to receive

I heard yesterday morning that the man to whom I was married for 13 years and who was the father of my three children had died suddenly.

Shock is a dynamic all of its own.  Numbness leads to disbelief, to grief, to guilt and to questions, question, questions – and of course the task of telling three people whose lives will never be the same again, one of whom has learning difficulties and who will never really understand.   Now isn’t about me, this is the time to support them and help them gain some sense of understanding and perspective, to just let them cry and to love them. 

But suddenly he is all around me.  He is in the pictures on the wall, the words on the page, the rain on my skin. I am reliving memories I had no idea my mind had stored, remembering words, anecdotes, and songs on the radio.   How can this be when our marriage was over so long ago and I am very happily remarried?  I have experienced grief many times but this feels very different.  I have no tears or anger, no regrets, just sadness and perhaps the stark realisation of the power of the past.  I’m in a type of time travel –  another layer, another life, another landscape.

The jagged wounds are the hardest to heal.

Marigold x