This one is for my Mac friends - who have been a huge support throughout.
Eight weeks today.
I have been learning so much.
I have been learning about jack points in cars and that chivalry is alive and well on road-sides of the UK.
I have learned that alternators can sometimes overcharge and can set the engine on fire. (Did you know that?)
I have been learning that somehow the dusting used to get done in the places I didn’t notice.
But most of all, I have been learning that I will have to let others into my life.
There is a problem with very self-contained couples – they depend on each other for emotional support, and support in every other area of life.
What happens if one of them goes?
Is there anyone close enough to support them?
How do they manage to let others in?
Perhaps it is particularly difficult for childless couples.
I don’t know.
But I do know that it has been hard for me to ask for help when I have needed it. And it is perhaps particularly hard because I am seen as someone who usually ‘copes.’ I don’t often do histrionics. I haven’t needed to. Grief, and the times we have needed help, we have dealt with ourselves, privately. For thirty years.
But there is no ‘we’ any more.
One of The Hounds died the day before yesterday. She was the best of dogs and Jonathan’s favourite – so beautiful and so very good from the very first days she came into our life. It was cancer of the spleen – difficult and deadly in dogs.
We loved her very much.
Of course, the whole episode felt like a miniature of what I had just gone through – nightmare on nightmare. I was devastated – it felt like another part of Jonathan had been taken from me.
And there was no-one there to give comfort.
There was no-one there to help me dig her grave, which had to be done because that is what we have always done. We have always respected our companions as a matter of principle.
I managed very well until I got to the point when I couldn’t physically lift her out of the car – or couldn’t without doing a disservice to her. After a few desperate attempts, I knew I had to ask for help.
Pride: what a burden it is. And what a relief when you can let it go.
In the pouring rain, some neighbours finished the job that I had started, and our lovely hound was buried.
I am beginning to learn to accept the kindness of those strangers who can drive you to the nearest point of help when your car breaks down. I am beginning to accept that friends and neighbours may really want to help.
I am beginning to let others in.
But it is all so very hard and nothing can even begin to fill the void.
