Remembering

[Wifflesnook]

It's two years since my Pete died and I find it sometimes hard to believe he ever lived, even though we were married for almost fifty years. I find this one of the hardest things. How can we keep the memory fresh? I've lots of photos and I even have videos. I'm lucky that way. And I have his poems too. But when I walk through our lovely cottage alone I can't imagine him here. I would give anything to be able to remember him fully. Do you know what I mean? I know you will. Jan

[enna]

My dear friend, you don’t have to remember how to keep your memories fresh ~Pete lives inside you. He is with you when you do all the daily things you do around the cottage. He is with you when you walk Kelbi. He is with you when you look at the full moon. He is with you when you snuggle your grandbabies. He is with you when you wake in the morning and have that first cup of coffee. He is with you when you spend time at the moth cage. He is with you when you take the courses to learn new things. He is with you in the silence of your thoughts ~ ever present.

Sometimes we try too hard and are looking for something that is already there.

Just as my Jim is with me so is your Pete with you. How could they be anywhere else!

As you roll over in your bed he is with you with his arm around you. He is listening to all that you want to say. It is a fact. Our loved ones are with us. We do not have to work to keep our memories fresh for they will always be with us. Our imaginations are a wonderful thing. Sometimes under used.

I love what you are doing with Pete’s poems ~ recording them in your own voice for your children and grandchildren. What a treasure they will have.

Sometimes we just have to believe that they are with us. How could they be anywhere else! It does not matter how long we are with our soulmates ~ love is a powerful emotion and does not cease to exist because one love is no longer present in the flesh. Your Pete is with you, Jan. And yes, I do know just what you mean.

[kayc]

Oh Jan, just last night I was thinking the same thing. It feels like a dream that George ever lived, it feels like I made him up, was he ever really here with me? I carry his driver's license in my wallet (I know it's not legal, ask me if I care), I see his picture up on the wall, I see little traces of him here and there, but it feels surreal. It's been nine years next month. How can that be? How can life just go on when the most vibrant person in the world died? Then I ask myself if he still loves me, am I still his little one? Of course! It has to be! We were everything to each other, how can death or anything else change that! He still means the world to me, he has to feel the same way. We have to continue on faith, believing in their love, their continued existence.

[Wifflesnook]

Lovely replies Anne and Kay. Yes, Anne, I know in my gut that what you say is true and maybe I'm trying to recreate something which never can be recreated. Well, I know I am. Because he is with me in all those ways. We don't understand so much. I'm still working on living without his physical presence. I've a long way to go. It's morning here and I'm in bed with a pot of coffee. It's a lovely day and the. Moth trap seems to have a few more moths than yesterday. I felt myself feeling a sharp interest in it which is good. So much better than that numb feeling that I don't care about anything ever again.

Yes my daily reading one of Pete's poems and recording it is doing me good. I look forward to it. It's poignant and each time I think "Why didn't I tell him more often how much I loved them?". But I did pretty much. And now I hope he knows everything.

I hope all my friends over there are sleeping peacefully. I wish you a good day when you do wake.

[KATPILOT]

Jan, I just had to join in to say that it is so true how they live inside us. I am now into my fourth year and I have realized that who I am today is a mix of my older self and Kathy. I have begun to notice that I do things and behave in ways that remind me of how she acted in life. You see, we have been effected by them and in a strange way, they are so in us that we have become not just one person but two. This may sound strange and even a bit nuts but I tell you it really rings true for me.

Anne, you say it so well. In deed they are with us. Kay, I had to smile about the drivers license. Just yesterday I had to show my own drivers license but pulled out Kathy's instead. Like who cares? It reminds me of when I would have her lipstick and drivers license on me sometimes when we would be in a place where she didn't want to carry a purse.

Stephen

[Queeniemary]

Yes, they do live inside and beside us, but I understand Jan, what you are saying. Sometimes it just seems so surreal, when I think of Mike being in this house, sitting on the couch, covered in cats and dogs...he loved the animals. Jan sometimes I have to just sit quietly and go back in time, to our busy lives when he was alive, to try to remember how it was then. We both were working, he worked nights, I worked days. I would see him briefly in the mornings before I left for work, and after he got home, and would not see him at all in the evenings. Weekends were our time. Into my fifth year without him, it is difficult sometimes to remember just how it was when he was here physically. However, there is a cardinal that hangs around my back porch that I think is his reminder to me that he is still here, and I am always so happy when I see it. As Stephen says, (Hello Stephen), we do incorporate some of their feelings, and manners into ourselves, I see it also Stephen. Jan, I also have videos of Mike, mostly of plays we were in, or he was in. I don't watch them very often, because it hurts, but occasionally I will pick one (my favorite is when he played the town idiot Raynerd in Christmas Belles), and watch it and cry.

QMary

[kayc]

QMary,

I wish more than anything I had a video or even just a recording of his voice. I didn't know his voice would disappear from my answering machine automatically, I was brokenhearted when that happened. But I remember his voice. More than anything I wish he could just hold me one more time...that would be heaven to me.

[KATPILOT]

And hello to you dear QM. You know, cardinals are a sign. I have read about that and I have experienced that presence as well. The videos (ah yes).. How nice it is to have them though don't you think? As hard as they are to watch sometimes, as we move along on our journey, it slowly becomes easier to watch. I just pulled out our wedding video and this time it didn't sadden me too badly. The only part I still loose it to is her wiping a tear off her cheek during the ceremony. To think that someone that wonderful would be so happy to marry me.... just gets me. I noticed in the words spoken by the minister and ourselves, that never was mentioned "till death do you part" or "as long as you both shall live". I think that means something.

Guess I'm still married.

You know something Kay? I think faith is everything here. Faith like in religion, is not having proof but still believing. How interesting that we humans have that capacity. Sometimes you just have to let yourself go and just have that faith. When we can do that, everything falls into place. It is what keeps them alive for all of time. I'm three years and know it. Mary you are five and know as well. Jan, I'll bet you are discovering that as too. And think about this, "remembering" is tempered with "living". It makes us who we become.

[KATPILOT]

Seems insensitive of me to not realize you have no recordings Kay. I am sorry you lost the message but I'm betting George is still holding you.

[Wifflesnook]

Such lovely messages, and received on the two year anniversary of my Pete's Farewell, which was held in the barn of the farm next door but one, with swallows flying in and out to their nests in the rafters and the rape fields all yellow in bloom just as they are now. People said it was the best funeral they had ever attended but I didn't want it called a funeral, so I called it a Farewell. I spend today at our field where our friend, John, strimmed the vegetation around the pond. (I dont think they are called strimmers in the USA.).

And we found that the other paths had just been cut by the chap who does them for me, and the May blossom was out and the Blue-tailed Damsel flies were flitting above the pond and I glimpsed a newt. Yes, I know in my inner heart and soul that my Pete was with me. Not sure how but he was. (And is). And Sandra our neighbour just brought round two Poplar Hawk Moths she had rescued. Who knows? A message from my Pete just when I need it.

"Why sometimes I've believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast" said the White Queen to Alice in Through the Looking Glass.

Sometimes I feel I am doing that when I firmly cling to my belief that my Pete is with me. But the universe is a strange place and we know so little really. He is there, just as you too believe your beloved ones are with you.

[enna]

Everything you say is true. It is evening there already. May is a month full of memories. We have such grand ones.

[Wifflesnook]

Yes we do, and we are lucky to have been loved so much, and the love they had for us and that we had for them is still here. I know people who sadly never experienced this. I knew we were fortunate when Pete was alive and with me. And this cannot be taken from us, can it?

[Queeniemary]

No, Jan, that cannot be taken from us, the memories of the wonderful love we all shared, and continue to share can never be taken away. The love is still alive today, just part of the equation's energy is not visible to our eyes. But I do believe that the love is still there, and believe it or not, my cardinal is on the porch, just flew by the French doors! What kind of a sign is that!!!

[Wifflesnook]

Whew you have such exotic birds in the States. Most of ours are little brown things. But it's beautiful weather here this morning. May is Pete's favourite month and though now it will always be associated in my kind as the month he died I know he wants me to enjoy what I can. Next week I shall go to stay for five days with our daughter and her two littlie ones. This weekend I shall walk, garden and think of my Pete.

[kayc]

We were supposed to get married in May, when the lilacs are in bloom, but alas it was not to be, we had to wait until October...still it was a sunny weekend, we didn't even need our coats (a rarity for the Oregon coast!).

We have a lot of birds here in the state, but then it's a vast country, so you see it all! I love the hummingbirds and owls and woodpeckers and tanningers that we get here, and of course, lots of robins and sparrows.

[heidi1]

Jan,

A dear relative in Germany lost her husband 7 years ago, I vividly remember how she was when she visited 3months after Heinz died, she was so utterly lost, so quiet, so……, I can't verbalise it, but I kept it in my heart how she grieved, the next year she came and she was the same, even years later when I asked how many years it had been, she burst into tears and said 4 years. Now it is my turn, and I knew straight away that she would be one person who understood, as at the time I didn't know any one else who had been so obviously affected. She said the1st thing that gave her any comfort are these words.

Was man tief in seinem Herzen besitzt,

kann man nicht durch den Tod verlieren. Goethe

It means, what one holds deep in his heart, cannot be lost by death.

Heidi.

[Wifflesnook]

Lovely quote Heidi. I find quotations very comforting to reach out to. I keep a file of grief poems and also write them down. I need to go deeply down into my heart often, I try to show a brave face publicly but in my heart I'm with my Pete all the time. It will never be different for me. I will never get over his loss and I don't want to. But I do manage to live a fairly balanced life. Strange dreams lately in which Pete appeared but I was annoyed with him. One in which he was unfaithful which he never was. One in which I decided to have another baby (!) and he wasn't supportive. Strange. I rarely dream about him which I find odd considering that I never stop thinking about him.

[kayc]

So true and eloquent, dear Heidi.