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TRIGGER WARNING. CONTAINS SUICIDE REFERRENCES.
When we lose things that are important to us it tends to leave a vacuum. In just three years we had lost our faith, the man of the house and all the friends we had ever had. All our family were gone too except us solitary three. The children and I.
I had lost my husband and life partner. But to be fair that had all happened long before he had dragged that petrol lawnmower into our bathroom and screwed shut all the windows and doors, leaving me to find him, if he had ever truly been mine at all.
It had taken a long time for those things to take their station in our lives; friends, family, a place of belonging – to take up lodging within us. Replacing them would never be easy and in some instances they might never happen at all. Nor would it or should it be a quick process if it did. As for finding love again, that was the last thing on my mind. But then again, what does the mind have to do with love?
In the weeks and months following the funeral my days were filled with overseeing the renovations and restoration of our beloved family home, looking after our bereaved children and attending to legal matters that were complex and stressful enough they could quite possibly make a saint cry in frustration and self pity. Nevertheless, all this gave me focus – something to take my mind off anything other than the agony in my soul and the memory of finding him, trying to revive him.
Being able to achieve things and not drown in woe as many expected me to, gave me confidence despite being at a low ebb. The fight keeps you breathing I say.
Many, including those I was close to, expected me to fold up under the immense strain of Stephen’s death, much less take on the mammoth project of restoring our home mere weeks after the funeral. How could they know how their assumptions made me feel? My pain wasn’t something I’d want anyone to understand.
To know that they doubted my fortitude and tenacity upset me and hurt me and served to drive me ever more determined towards my goal. Their lack of belief gave me something I could hit out at. I was hell bent on proving them wrong, not just to prove my deep devotion and love for my family but to show that I did not need God or indeed any gods to survive and thrive.
No one could say it was easy. No one. Anyone who saw me could see I was holding on like grim death and fighting the good fight on every front. Every day I would wake up with that sickening realization that Stephen was gone and that we were absolutely alone.
Panic would give way to practicality because it had to. I’d take out my notebook and pen and run through my daily checklist and to do lists. One foot in front of the other, slogging, emotionally and physically was the only way.
For instance, tracking down the right size replacement doors might have been boring for some but it stopped me momentarily from remembering the racking sobs of my children upon hearing about their father’s death. No child should come home from school to that.
Load after load of broken windows, doors, skirting boards and other detritus had to be hauled into the back of my car and disposed of at the local facilities. The ache in my body fought with the ache in my heart every night and every mother fucking day. But I was achieving something. With every job completed my confidence grew. And self respect. I saw in the faces of the workmen who watched me take on whatever was in my bloody way, whatever needed done, a deepening respect. I wasn’t just some woman. I was a young widow fighting, clawing, defending her home and spreading her eagle wings across her two children with all she had. Oh yes, I was fierce.
After years of feeling worthless, change was occurring. Little by little, I was starting to bloom. Instead of letting myself go and not bothering with my appearance, I made every effort to look good, even if I felt at rock bottom or was working until I could barely stand; which was often. This seemed to surprise people also. But their stares at me in my cheery yellow sundress and work boots and full make-up mattered not. It was necessary. It was all part of the glue holding me together. They could just fuck off as far as I was concerned.
There were also ones that noticed my verve for very different reasons. Who seemed to think it fitting and acceptable to blatantly and crudely hit on a young widowed mother. These I rebuffed politely, albeit with perhaps the smallest of internal smiles.
Vanity runs deep in the blood of the best of us as well as the worst.
After two solid months of hard graft, the work was finally done. The house was unrecognizable. Every room was transformed. I’d ripped the place apart and put it back together. So settling me and my ‘wee uns’ back into the family home was next on my to do list.
I worried. A lot. I found I was not sleeping at all now that I’d no fourteen hour work days to tire me. This would be our fourth house move in a year. And their father had died there. Had I changed it enough? Had I changed it too much? One torture was exchanged for another.
Yet we needed change one hundred percent. And as mother always says, ‘it’s a long road that has no turning.’
God how I missed her!
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