the year after, is always the year of nexts
The thing about when you lose someone is that the first year is spent grieving in the most fundamental way….walking down a street reminds you of them, a song, an expression, a thought, a colour. It reminds you of a life that you once had with them in it. The one thing I have to say as I settle into the year that proceeds the year of mourning, is that the second year is the year of nexts. The dates start being the days that they did not take up physical space in your life a year earlier. I prayed against reason during the mourning year that they would come back…much like the lyric of one of my favourite bands of all time Stars, ” you drop a coin into the sea and shout out “please come back to me”". That’s how the first year went, praying against reason for him to come back and life to feel normal and everyone-normal.
Once I “came to” and swept away the bottles of wine, beer, gin, vodka and any other escapism I had consumed last year, I realized that THIS year is the year of next. There are experiences that will be of the future and will forge the new life. Stars put out their new album aptly named 5 Ghosts yesterday, and that album is an epic reminder of the years of next. Stars as I have said, have a sacred place in my life…not just on the day of departure, but during design school, when against my better judgement I put away my patterns, and turned off the lights, lit candles and said to him that this would be a night we would remember forever. That was the first night Stars entered my soul and they have taken up residence there ever since. They make me feel ok about the fact that life does have to go on, and that I have to forge of year of nexts. He would want me to go on, and knowing that intellectually is much different from knowing that in your heart. I am slowly learning that the heart heals and the utter despondence of grief goes away, or at the most, dissipates to a point where life is livable…..
Another year of nexts comes when my nearest and dearest comes back from Korea in two weeks… he will come back to a “family” that is not the family that was here when he left. When he left “he” was here, our family unit was the family unit that we knew. Now when he comes back his son won’t be here and there will be others to take “his” place. That makes me realize how long he has been gone, how much I have gone through without him and how much I have done without him…life is going to be a bit crazy for a while…but this is part of a life well lived and well loved…..
