October 15th. It was a whole year since you left me. It was a whole year since I kissed you good bye and left for work. It was a whole year since I got to be held in your arms for a cheeky snuggle. A year since I received the news that you were never coming home again. I had lived an entire year without seeing you. 365 days of getting up and surviving your loss and of fighting through this feeling.
October 15th and I wake up to you missing. I'm not sure what I was expecting the day to feel like. I'm not sure if I was expecting it to be one of the hardest days yet or just another day. After all, we've already lived through the worst day, which was the day you never came home. I'm not even sure what I was supposed to feel. I chose to escape down to Devon to spend the week with your Mum and Dad in the hope that the day would be easier. I couldn't just sit in our home waiting. Waiting for the day to end and waiting to wake up from this endless nightmare of reality.
October 15th. A browse through facebook and I can see your friends remembering you and sending their love. I can see that they too are hurting and have remembered you. I'm sure you'd expect me to comment about this day and to write a big heart felt message of all that you mean to me but I can't. Not on this day. For me I don't want to mark this day and I'm not sure why or what sort of person that makes me. But I can't mark the day because in some way it is no different to any other day that I've woken up without you. I don't need an anniversary to remind me that you're missing or how much it hurts. I don't need an anniversary to re-live that day. Why? Because I relive our last moments together every time I open my eyes and turn to see your side of the bed - untouched and empty.
October 15th. The day itself was peculiar. The day itself, surprisingly, wasn't any harder than any other morning that I've woken up without you. I didn't suddenly remember that you were gone. I didn't suddenly remember the event that stole you from me. It wasn't suddenly harder being without you just because of that particular day. I'm not sure what to think to this. Perhaps it wasn't any harder because in my life EVERY day is hard. Everyday is an anniversary of your death. There isn't a single day that I can go through without thinking of you and what happened because I wake up to your absence every day. I wake up to you missing from us every day. I wake up to the reality of your death every day. The space where you should be sleeping is left empty every day. So I guess the year anniversary didn't suddenly make me remember what had happened because I live through that EVERY SINGLE DAY. In a way, that made the year anniversary just another day and I've adapted to get through a day (admittedly not very well but I'm doing it.) So I left you no message but you didn't leave my thoughts.
October 15th. It wasn't harder waking up without you but it did mark that a whole year has passed and I'm not sure how that's happened. Time really doesn't work the same when you've lost someone really important to you. It feels like it was only yesterday but it was a whole year ago. I never imagined that I would reach this point. I never imagined that I would make it through a whole year without you. But I have and it sucks.
The trouble with a year anniversary is that society thinks (and I admit that I also had the same misconception) that it's the first year that is the worst and that after that you'll start to be ok again. But I am discovering that this isn't how it works. Yes I have made it through a year but to me it's just another day. It's as hard today as it was when you first left. It's as hard today as it was after a week, a month, a year. It is not any easier and now I have to make it through an endless number of days without you. Each one with the same wake up and the same reality punch in the face.
So really what even is a year in terms of grief? Is it the marking of a moment when you should begin to heal? Is it the mark of when you should be rebuilding your life? Is it marking a moment of placing the past behind you and moving on? Is it the mark of time after losing someone of saying, "It's ok to be happy again"? Or is it marking a point where you are supposed to stop grieving for a life lost and just get on with things again? Is it the marking of time to stop hurting and to suddenly feel better with the situation? As someone who is currently experiencing this moment of time I can quite firmly state that the answer as NO. No. The passing of a year does not signal any of these things to me. It is nothing more than the marking of time passed. It does not mark feelings or healing. It is just a marking of time. It is marking the days that you have survived since losing a huge part of yourself. Luke Perryman it has been a year since you were here and laughing. I still can't get my head around this fact.
October 15th. A day that none of us will forget and a day that represents the moment all of our lives were irreversibly changed for the worst. This is the day that you lost your future and we lost you. Perhaps this is why the first anniversary is expected to be harder; because it brings the reality of a day that altered all of our paths. It reminds us that life rarely works how we plan it to work.
This date serves to remind us of that initial stab of pain when we learnt of you leaving. It brings back that moment of standing in the chapel being told you had died. It brings back the memories of driving around trying to find out where you had been taken, only to learn that you had been taken no where as you had died at the scene.
Yet strangely, I didn't exactly have these thoughts on this day. I didn't have these feelings on this day. I have had these thoughts on many other days but I didn't have the vivid reminders of the events of that evening on this day; the year anniversary. Not sure what sort of person that makes me. Don't get me wrong, as I said above, waking up without you on this day was as hard as it always is. I replayed our last morning together as I always do. But the anniversary of the evening when I lost you, I didn't feel. I was numb.
I thought of the events that had occurred at the times they happened. But I think my mind had numbed me to feeling at that moment. I remember thinking; this is the time you would have come off your bike. This is the moment I found out that something had happened to you. But I just felt numb. As though my mind didn't want me to re-live that experience again on this date.
October 15th. I left you no message of great remembrance or love for all to see because I couldn't mark this day- the day you never came home. But don't think for a second that I didn't remember you. I remember you every day; regardless of the date.
I am discovering, as I have mentioned in previous posts, that what you want to do and expect to be able to do are very different to what you are actually capable of doing. I am trying to return to our old life. But it is proving to be exceptionally difficult. It just feels wrong to be living our old life with you missing. It just feels empty and wrong. It has been a year and despite how far I have come without you, I am now right back to taking each part of the day as it comes. Most mornings I am back to taking each task/moment as it comes and not being able to think past that.
So this morning, whilst laid in bed and not wanting to start yet another day, I had to think of the task of getting out of bed and putting on my dressing gown. After eventually managing this, the next task I thought of was letting Molly out for a wee. We had a little play before I fed her breakfast. That's as far as I could think of at that moment. I laid on the sofa for a considerable amount of time, before then deciding that I really should force some food down. So I set about the task of breakfast and a cup of tea for me (whilst pinching a pair of my pants out of Molly's mouth as she'd gotten into the clean wash pile!). I had previously made a list of jobs that needed doing but I can't face them yet. It is half 1 in the afternoon and I have only achieved getting up, feeding Molly and myself. This is not a very successful day.
The thing with grief is that is never lessens. The black void that covers your entire life does not shrink with time. Instead you have to work hard to make your life larger than the grief. You have to create a life to work around the grief. Easier said than done. Keeping this in mind, I am attempting to try different methods to do this. Keeping on top of the daily life of simply getting up and living and running a house is actually a huge job for just one person, especially with a puppy creating chaos everywhere she goes! So I am breaking the tasks down and making them a morning or an afternoon target. Everyday there are two things that I aim to achieve. Only two but that's where I am at the moment and that is just going to have to be ok.
For example: (and it doesn't always go to plan as today is proving and again that is ok)
My main morning target: hoover upstairs
My main afternoon target: clean fish tank.
Tomorrow's morning: hoover downstairs and mop floors
Afternoon: walk Molly and practise our training at a new place
And so on. I have broken up the tasks of running the house and of me doing something more than sitting on the sofa. But they are small and usually manageable targets. I am back to small steps. Previous targets this week have been to buy lunch, get milk, go for coffee with a friend. They are small targets. But by doing this I am hoping that I will build back up to taking on the day as a whole. But right now, a whole day is too big and too much. Rome wasn't built in a day and a love lost isn't forgotten in a year.
I have no idea what the year ahead will bring. I have no idea how I will get through another year without you but I know that I will because I have no choice. I am just going to take each moment as it comes. Small steps and small targets. I have an amazing support network around me and I couldn't have gotten this far without those special people. So I just need to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
I am hoping that one day, instead of reliving the pain of losing you, I will relive your laughter and your smile everyday. I will relive how you made me feel and it won't hurt as much. A year has passed and I know that I am still very far away from this day but I will keep trying and keep fighting.
I miss you Perryman and you are the reason I smiled so much. A love you a little bit...A LOT xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
