Evening, my love. It’s been a day. I’ve cried, laughed, been angry and sad, and happy too. To be honest, today would be the best Friday I’ve had since you died, but that’s not saying much. It’s just that here, now, sitting on the bed and writing to you, I am riding a little wave of happiness AND thinking of you.
Partly, it’s because I feel you near again to some extent when, for the last couple of weeks, I’ve felt you were a long, long way away. Mum tells me she’s sensed you here, at her house, watching her make dinner. Have you been off visiting family and friends? Is it because you miss them, or you were worried about them, or you’ve been trying to tell them something about me? Or all these things?
I’ve been so sad these last few weeks, and I’m not kidding myself. A couple of hours playing Guitar Hero with family is great fun, but this feeling isn’t going to last. It’s just nice to think of you and not cry. We played one of your favourite songs – Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ‘Free Bird’ – and while it brought a tear to my eye to hear it – those lyrics hit close to the bone just now – I smiled too remembering you singing along to this track when we played it in the car.
Why did you love songs about having to leave? You loved them for their bittersweet pain, songs like ‘Free Bird’, and LedZep’s ‘Ramble On’ and ‘Babe I’m Gonna Leave You’ and Jackson Brown’s ‘The Load Out’, and David Bowie’s ‘5 Years’. Sad songs, powerful and poignant. Songs I like too but find so edged with grief now they hurt to listen to. Is it like my fear of cancer, born when I was 16 years old and our neighbour died in her 30s of breast cancer leaving a devastated husband and three little children behind? Did we know somehow our lives would turn out this way?
Sixteen: another week between us, between your last breath and the one I’m taking now. Sixteen: the wedding anniversary we should have had next month. Sixteen.
I hope you are free as a bird, my love. A seagull learning to be perfect, to be ‘there’. The tears are coming now; my heart aches too much and fun only lasts so long. I miss you and want to be with you. Can we be free together or do we have to be apart forever?
You are my true love, my dearest heart, my better half. I miss you. I’m crying again. I’m sorry. Be well. Xxx
You're gone 
i reach office and read your blog before i start my work…it has become a routine except on weekends…even though i visit here everyday, i can’t find any words i have learned ever to console you, I am sorry…….. 😦
Don’t be sorry – you shouldn’t feel that you need to console me (or read my outpourings – doesn’t sound like a happy way to start the day). I’m sad with good reason. No one can fix it and I don’t expect anyone to. I just need to talk to my love and this is the only way I know that feels real. I always wrote to him whenever we were apart. For now, that’s something I can’t stop. Hugs.
hugs back
Not long before LOML died, the James Blunt song “Goodbye My Lover” had just been released. I sang along to the lyrics, not really giving them much thought … until LOML said “Please don’t sing THAT song”.
I still haven’t really paid attention to the lyrics (still don’t know if they relate to death or separation of another kind) since the title bears enough emotion. Hearing it after his death hurt … a lot.
Thinking of you on your sixteenth anniversary. He will be there with you.
My love seemed drawn to all the sad songs during his illness, songs he remembered from years ago, from before we met. It was hard, listening to them when we went for a drive. It’s impossible now not to cry when I hear them. I listen to a lot of heavy, angry music instead, something I always loved but need all the more to drown out the sad thoughts.