Gone now, where? And if you come back and haunt me, I swear ta f………..!
Today is 21 August, I add this blog post / post / update, simply to mark the date and time and for what it may or may not mean to me or you or any person out there.
What matters today more than it did yesterday and what matters less? I know, I know, I am always wondering and asking questions. Some of you readers that landed here just want to read a bit and not think for yourself and dive in to some another person’s (mine) bees wax, news, nonsense and updates. It is a real question though, what matters more or less today than it did yesterday?
You may have heard the little ditty “Yesterday is History and Tomorrow is a Mystery”. I find it to be quite on point most of the time, why only most of the time one may wonder? Sometimes yesterday’s little history might linger on a while and the mystery or my own lack of understanding may fester a while. Maybe you have found this has happened to you on occasion? The bits and pieces of yesterday, hanging around and lingering on for a while, in to today and maybe even beyond. I think for me today or yesterday or these past few days have been because of the feelings of loss and sadness that have come up. Perhaps it could be said that for feelings associated with grief, they may seem to last forever and never really go away. Are there different types of grief or is grief just grief?
Again with the questions.
I do know that I had come to terms and understanding of my own grief of child loss by understanding grief to be a very close relative of love, or the feelings were intermingled so to speak. The more we love somebody the stronger the grief, to kind of give you a snap shot of what I had learned about grief almost being love turned inside out in a way really. Some of the points/questions that come up for me are what is this feeling of sadness? Why does it feel sad to attend a funeral and want to celebrate the deceased person’s life, yet it feels sad? Why do I think on memories of days gone by and feel sad when it is their smile I am remembering? Again what is grief really and how can we speak about it more often to normalise the feelings and maybe ease the emotional pains that come with it.
I could cheer myself up quite easily by telling all of the good yarns and stories of the fond funny memories about my friend who we, the local village, buried this past week. I could entertain you in comedy and laughter about and surrounding this person as they were a larger than life character for as far back as I can remember, we sometimes might refer to this type of person as a really good, down to earth “MESSER”. Not in any bad way, not like a messy person, no not at all. A “messer” in how I mean it is a type of person who might not take every situation seriously and can at the best or worst of times, they might look for the funny side and play around and cause a giggle or a laugh to occur, they might be the one who likes the odd practical joke being played on someone here and there and they might even pretend to be grumpy or angry or upset and hold their character quite well and then turn on you and say “I’m only messing with ya!. A bit of the old tom foolery, I suppose it could be called.
Nonetheless, it is not nice to wish a friend a final goodbye, it is not nice to say farewell and know for certain we will never speak with that person again, never listen to their hearty laugh and never hear the beep-beep on the phone with their messages coming through. Nope, a chapter closes and that is the end of it. I guess the sadness could be just that and why we refer to it as loss, I or anybody will be at a loss to not be able to hear from them again. We do not know how to prevent their passing away and their burial of yesterday creep in today when we begin to realise that we will not be getting any of those phone calls anymore. Projecting in to the future and thinking of the mystery of tomorrow already and knowing full certain that a friend will not be calling to say hi. Do you see what I mean about the mystery of tomorrow becoming clouded with the history of yesterday lingering on? And this is how or what I call not living in the now and this can result in a feeling of sadness. It is times like these that being regimental and sticking to the here and now of today only and not feeling sad for a little bit might be more difficult than it sounds.
I guess the bottom line is that it is truly sad when we lose a loved one or a friend or a relative of any kind, it is okay to feel how we feel about it and we can and will overcome the feelings of grief and loss. We cannot hurry them up any and all that we can rely on is that these feelings of sadness and loss and grief and love and hurt and pain and almost like manic feelings will pass in their own time. The manic of how loss can be, a fond thought or memory turning rapidly in to tears and crying and maybe back to a consoling memory of funnier times of old.
I guess I can be honest about how I feel and make a commitment to my friend who has passed, I will not allow time in their memory ever be filled with sadness, I will always remember their smile, their funniness and their “messer” mentality. The good old laughs will be remembered and the sorrows and pains or the more serious elements of life will be left to drift off in to the distance of the memory lands, only good cheer and laughter to be fully remembered. I do honestly believe that we keep a person’s spirit well and truly alive when we never forget them and speak about them fondly and often. What I have found through my own grief journey has been that if the fond memories ever become too difficult to recall and to sit with or in for a little time, there ain’t any harm in them I tell ya, no harm at all.
So as I began the post today, I will mark this day as the aftermath of saying goodbye and I have marked it with my own promise to myself, never a sad memory only ever the fond memories of the “messer” with the cheeky grin and their “lickle smile”.
A.McNallyauthor.com 