Writing this listening to Mozart C Minor Mass - the most exquisitely beautiful and joyful and also searingly painful music and singing. Got to thinking, 'How does that happen?' 'Why is that?' 'Aint that weird.'
Like Life - the laughter/tears etc Remembered when my man was dying in the hospice, how the sky was bluer than I've ever seen it before, the butterflies were more beautiful, the flowers more stunning, love deeper and easier but oh so much more painful. And music - aaah yes - music I have never fully understood before became immediately clear and more amazing and full of life than I have ever heard. Which is why I cannot yet (and maybe never will be able to) listen to certain pieces of Bach.
Today, a very kind friend came to do some jobs for me - got rid of the wasps, patched up the downpipes, drank too much coffee and we talked about cemeteries and death. I went to the cemetery afterwards and was so thankful that D's grave had been put right - the big gaping hole filled in properly and new grass seed scattered. It all looked neat and tidy. The kind cemetery manager came to talk to me and said he hoped I would feel happier and he was sorry if anything had been moved out of place - the red roses, the hearts, the lavender and more red roses............ I know, I know. He told me a lovely story about how part of the cemetery had been an orchard, and in that part are buried the woman who owned the orchard and her husband, who had first met her when scrumping apples from the orchard. A sweet story - maybe it's true, maybe it's a myth - but it made me smile. Used to hate cemeteries, but now feel completely comfortable in this one. There is an elderly man I see often who just sits quietly on a bench near his wife's grave. And we smile at each other. There is comfort and understanding in shared grief. No words needed.
I then steeled myself to go the stonemasons for a first discussion about D's headstone. (It can take many months for these things to be completed.) Managed to stay composed long enough to ask my first questions and came away with an envelope stuffed full of pictures, price lists etc etc
It has been a beautiful autumn day - blue sky, a mild breeze. On days like this I am happy to be outside 'cos I can feel D is near. He loved the outdoors. So, in my sadness I can find comfort and feel at ease and yet alone out in the garden.
See what I mean - the duality of life.
Grief - it's a puzzle. Up one minute, down the next and so it goes on. People tell me things will improve and I believe them. I have to or else I'd need to throw myself off the nearest cliff (I live in one of the flattest parts of the UK.) But it feels as though the sadness is deepening. 'It gets worse before it gets better,' said a so-called friend. Maybe it is the understanding that deepens. This is what has really happened. It really happened and this really is you now.
And I find myself craving company and desperately wanting to be left alone, to retreat from the world and yet to gird myself to embrace some sort of life. The paradox again.
Too much thinking - never a good thing. So I'll stop now ............. and enjoy the genius of Mozart. He who was capable of writing such beautiful music, has brought so much pleasure to so many and yet was buried in a pauper's grave.
Ain't life weird.
Little Jen
