Hi everyone,
I apologise in advance for any mistakes in this message. my left wrist is still a little painful and so I am dictating this message into my iPhone which often doesn't work out very well.
I am sitting here with a bottle of beer, not wine this evening and not gin and tonic, and just wanted to give you an update from me.
firstly I want to say To our recently joined remembers how sorry I am amto our recently joined members how sorry I am for your losses and that you had to join this group nobody wants to join. I also want to say, however, that I am glad you have found this group as I know it will provide you with very necessary support over the weeks and months to come.
I am reading all the posts here but unfortunately don't have much time to respond and interact at the moment as I am very busy. but then there are times like this evening for example when I take time to respond and also write my own post.
for those of you who don't know me, I Lost my husband, soulmate and best friend in May 2018 to an advanced form of prostate cancer. I have been living and working in Ireland since 2010 but I am originally from Germany. My husband and I met in 2009 in Germany where we both attended a bodiced seminar and in 2010, after a year of distant relationship, I moved to Ireland. The next 5 1/2 years were a little unsettling for both of us until, on the 1st of July 2015, we got married and, on the 1st of July 2016, moved into our dream home. Paul had told me about his prostate cancer very early on in the relationship that everything was well under control with Home on treatments for many years which is why it didn't bother us. His health started declining shortly after we had moved into our dream home. But it was not until June 2017 that we learned that his cancer had spread into the liver at which point chemotherapy turned out to be our only option if we wanted to prolong his life. We had 10 more months before he died peacefully at the cancer hospital in Dublin. I don't know how much longer he would have lived, had he not contracted influenza and had he not developed pneumonia in April 2018, but to be honest, I don't think he would have had much longer because his body had become so weak from all his treatment. I have written about our story and the book was published last year.
my journey with grief has been like the journey of so many of us here. I feel in a good place now. I think I can say that I am now at a point where I live with my grief, and where I have realised that missing my beloved every single day and moving forward with my own life is no longer a contradiction. in fact, I am doing my best to move forward as I know that this is what my lovely man would have wanted me to do.
I have been a holistic therapist for more than 20 years at this point and it was after the initial stages of my grief that I decided to specialise in grief support.
so now to the news I wanted to share this evening. as many of you know, I have been in Germany with my family since the first lockdown in March of last year. I will return to Ireland in early August. it was good to be here throughout the pandemic cocooning with my parents and my brother when he wasn't working abroad. I wrote my book and did a lot of work developing my business further and when my dad was diagnosed with Parkinsons earlier this year I was around to give initial support. But I know the time has come to move back home.
my dad's diagnosis has made me acutely aware of the fact that loss is an intrinsic part of life. As he is losing more and more obvious physical and mental ability, I am learning to except that I will lose him some day as well as everybody else close to me and that those close to me will lose me one day. Loss is just part of life.
I was very nervous about the prospect of going back to Ireland and being alone again, living alone again, after being with my family for such a long time. But I am not now. I know that I will be okay, even though it will take some time to get used to my life in Ireland again.
I have recently spoken add three different events about loss, my loss, and about what it was like for me to move forward. I love sharing my story and giving help to others and I will continue to do so. I will also continue with my attempts to bring Reiki and mindfulness meditation into the Irish hospital system, something which I have been working at for quite some time. and, even though I am totally blind and even though I am not medically trained, I see myself working in a hospital in Ireland Sunday giving support and care to terminally ill patients and patients in palliative care.
I am currently reading a really good book which I would recommend to all of you. It is called tell me the truth about loss and it is really amazing read. I would also like to recommend the book with the end in mind. If you google those titles you will find the books.
I would like to end this post by saying that I hope that this Saturday evening is as good as it can be under the circumflex stance says and that you can do something nice for yourself this weekend, even if it is only going for a walk in the summer sunshine or taking a bath.
with lots of love,
Mel
