Last week was my birthday. 39 years old. One more year and I'll be having a midlife crisis- I have it all planned. I'm going to fly out to Argentina with the kids, drop them off at their grandparents and disappear to ride horses for a few weeks. I figured that after the past few years I was due a mid life crisis and I'd far rather ride ponies than buy a sports car- I mean, where would I put the carseat and the dog in one of those?
Anyway, I did have a lovely birthday. A friend baked me a cake, my sister arranged for the kids to get me a coffee maker, and I got to spend the day at the Semi finals of the Queens cup up at Guards Polo Club. It was a great day- Bucks fizz, friends, ponies and sunshine, what more could you ask for?!
I had Morena with me for the day, but knowing that Tomas wouldn't want to come, I arranged for a friend to meet him from school and stay with him at the house. When we got home, she said she had a present to give me but wanted to talk about it first.....
She pulled out an envelope sized present, and as I unwrapped it she began to explain. "My friend is an illustrator, and I asked her to do this for your wedding present... And then obviously Martin got sick and was in the hospice and there was so much that happened that I didn't think it was the right time to give it to you.... but I think enough time has passed now so I wanted you to have it."
And, oh my goodness, it is perfect.
I just love everything about it. Bringing in the horse and the mallet, the fact that both Tomas and Morena still look more like Martin than me, the ears on Coco..... It's just so touching.
Later that evening, I was thinking about how kind this gift was and the fact that she hadn't wanted to upset me by giving it to me. And I understand that, I truly do, but it made me realise how often people try to be careful around me about Martin, even now nearly 18 months on.
In the early days, it was overwhelming. Martin was all I could think about. I'd have days where I would get angry that he hadn't sent me a message yet and I'd then remember why and fall apart. I'd hold myself together for the most part in front of people, and then get home and my brain, my thoughts, my body would just shut down. I could do nothing but curl up in the blanket he'd had in the hospice and sleep.
I still have those days. Less so now, but they still happen.
I've never shied away from talking about Martin- in fact I think if you ask most of those close to me they'll tell you I still talk about him almost as much as I did when he was here, normally to curse the fact that I now have to take out the bins myself rather than get him to do it.
It can be hard to know how to approach someone who has lost a loved one. Everyone handles their grief differently. Believe me when I say, I would rather you spoke about him. I want to hear people's memories, those stories of him getting drunk and suggesting dancing at midnight, or trying to lasso ponies, or him just being himself and helping out as he did for whoever needed it. Because the more I hear those stories, the more we keep him here, with us.
Yes, life moves on. And we have moved on. We've continued living, rebuilding, and there are plenty of things that have happened as part of our 'new normal' without him that you could almost divide time into before and after Martin. But that doesn't mean he won't always be part of our lives and that we shouldn't speak about him.
Terry Pratchett, my favourite author and first love, wrote in his book Reaper Man,
"No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away, until the clock wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone's life is only the core of their actual existence."
I love this quote. Because it's so true. People stay with us for far longer than we think, through their memories, the quirks we've learnt from them, all the tiny little things that trigger their presence within us. Every story, every conversation about him, is a ripple, that adds to all the others and keeps his memory flowing through us, and more importantly through Tomas and Morena, and it would be good to keep those flowing for as long as we can.
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