When the happiness seeps in…

Remembering the joyful moments. A vintage Tumblr extract…

Hello all,

For some reason, I want to write this week’s newsletter as, well, exactly that: a letter. I’ve attempted a few other fancier, more flourished, beginnings but this is what I’m drawn to do.

First of all, thank you for all the kind comments and messages I received after last week’s letter. If you missed it, it’s here but I was discussing the upcoming 19-year anniversary of my mum’s death, and how I can’t comprehend the length of time, nor how I’m feeling about it.

Rebecca Stewart

commented and called it ‘Grief Math’ and I thought this was a perfect description for the tangled, impossibility of years passing. Reality is often so difficult to understand. I feel grateful for this space where we can try and understand it together.

Sometimes, when I write about long-term grief (like I did last week) I worry about those in fresh, raw grief reading my words and thinking that, because I still suffer so long after my initial loss, they will feel exactly the way they’re feeling forever. That could feel quite hopeless. I wouldn’t want that message to be extracted from my words. It’s why I wanted to include that while I have had the darkest, and sludgiest of days, and while I have cried so violently, I haven’t felt that way in a long time. My grief wound remains but I have grown, happily, around it. But there will always be days when it still hurts. It has to.

Thinking of this, I was reminded of a post I wrote for the original Crocuses In The Snow, the Tumblr I wrote in 2014. I’ve posted it below, as it’s a snapshot of a precious moment to me. I’ve slightly edited it for clarity in some places but mostly it remains the same.

I’ve also, as I’m sending this letter a day earlier than usual, on my mum’s anniversary, posted a poem I wrote about her, as I want you all to be able to see who she was. (and please do feel free to comment and tell me about your person, whatever you want, even the not-so-wonderful.)

Anyway, I’ll let the below words do the rest of the talking.

Sending love,

Catriona

PS: There won’t be a newsletter next week, as I’m off to Canada on Sunday! I love pushing myself out of my comfort zone and this trip, consisting of hiking, snowmobiling and chasing down the Northern Lights is just that. But when I return I have a beautiful interview with an amazing author about long-term grief.

To those grieving…

My sister discovered this CD the other day. One I’d made in High School: Katie’s Banging Beats. It was the weirdest mix of everything: it would flip from Aerosmith to Baby, Got Back to Hi Ho Silver Lining and somehow we all got to dancing.

Me, my sister Bex, her son Alex, who turns two next week, and Brendan, her husband. My dad was sitting on the dusty pink chair, the one that used to sit up in mum’s room, looking out over the skies.

And dad was laughing so, so much. 

It was a laugh I hadn’t heard in years.

And we were all laughing so much too.

Alex in the middle, jumping about. Giggling at his feet darting around the carpet.

Bex’s dancing reminding me of when we’d dance around the living room with mum, to the Empire Records soundtrack. 

I knew my glass of wine was over there. Over on the counter. That usually when laughing this hard, I’d be drinking it. But I felt no need to reach over, take a sip.

The music… the laughing… Brendan’s feet stomping on the floor… 

I thought to myself: “there was a time I thought I’d never feel this way again.”

I’d never hear Dad’s laugh.

Never see Bex dance so freely.

Couldn’t even picture the future family that was before me.

But suddenly I was that happy. We all were.

And you will too. I promise, with time, it will come. 

Sue Innes

She taught me how to eat with chopsticks, there was a clatter of them, causing chaos in the cutlery drawer. She wore a snow leopard print faux fur coats that dragged to the ground as she walked, star and moon print trousers and basket sandals. She rarely wore make-up, spent big on her hair. She said: you wear it every day. She painted flowers, plotting out her garden on paper before the soil. She wore a wide brimmed straw hat, in summer, the freckles on her arms joined up. She had so many friends her hospice sink stored wine and there were queues of people at visiting time. She was always late and quite unapologetic about it. She made us take our own sun umbrella on holiday. She pushed me to be brave. She sang Janis Joplin in the kitchen. She bathed in honey. She collected stones and shells, combing the shore for hours. She printed out the words to Auld Lang Syne and handed them out before midnight. She raised a glass and made a toast to life, even on her death bed. She put the breath in me. She's here.

Somehow, she's here.