I’m going to be sixty this year, and that’s a big one in my family, because quite a few people didn’t make it. So that’s leaving me thoughtful about my past, present, and indeed future.
After dithering for years about getting a tattoo to remember loved ones, I settled on a replica of a beautiful drawing my sister Lindsay made of Daffodils. I added a bumblebee (specifically a Buff-tailed, since you ask. I do work for Sussex Wildlife Trust after all!). It’s incredibly hard to visit her grave, so now I have something I can look at whenever I want to, to remember her. I’m glad I’ve done it. But the trigger to do something came about, partly because grief keeps hitting me in huge waves this year.
It sometimes feels as if I’ve had a great chunk taken out of me. And because I’m food-oriented, I liken it to when, in the Great British Bake Off technical, they are given a certain quantity of ingredients and expected to make, say, 18 custard tarts. I watch with fascination as they roll out the pastry – can they get 18 cases out of it? Or is the last one a stuck together with random bits.
Even years after losing someone you love, the energy it takes missing them can feel as if you’ve had a great chunk of you torn out, and you’re left with, well, not enough of you to cover everything you need to carry on living your life.
So how do you recreate the beautiful tart that you are (!) from what can feel like remnants of yourself?
Obviously it’s not easy. But keep in mind that quotation by Philip Larkin: “What will survive of us is love”. There is love in every time you think of them, talk about them, make their favourite recipe, wear their scarf, make a cup of tea the way they liked, go to a place they loved, look at a gift they gave you, or a card they wrote you.
Spending a quid bunch on a cheering bunch of daffs from Tesco makes you smile for a week because they loved it when daff season began. Or just remember how much they loved you, and you loved them. THAT’s how you get through it.
With my love, as ever, to anyone grieving.