Remembering my love comes naturally everyday, how can it not when he’s all I think about now. Recently I’ve been thinking about ways I can memorialise my memories of him, the life he lived and the life we shared.
So far I have done this through my writing and a memorial tattoo. Through talking about him all the time with friends and visiting our special place together often. A place where we had loved spending time together. I have seen memorial plaques at look outs and think its a beautiful idea. This is another way I plan to honour his memory.
During high school I kept journals, I am lucky enough to still have these journals that are full of memories of my love and I from our younger days together. After he passed I read back through my school journals and was saddened by the fact there were so many things I had written about that we did together. Things that I couldn’t remember doing or very vaguely remembered.
So in the days after my love passed away I went and bought a journal to write down all the memories I have of us, I don’t want to forget a single moment we shared. It took less than a month to fill the first journal. Its now been just over three months and I still write in my journals every night. Not so much of our memories anymore, now I write letters to him. I tell him about my day, how I’m feeling, how much I miss him and love him. I talk to him about our children, our friends and our family. Some of my loves friends have asked me to say hello to him for them through my letters so I do. I give him their messages.
On a daily basis my mind is jogged of our memories, when this happens I think to myself wow I cant believe I hadn’t written that down yet. I find it beautiful how songs and music can completely take you back to a memory, no matter how many years have passed since you last thought of that moment. I love it when music takes me away, takes me back to moments with him.
Then there is the ability to create new memories of our loves even though they are no longer here. For valentines day just past, I wrote a poem for and about my love. I couldn’t give it to him in person so I shared it with his friends and family. That poem is now a reminder of him and a memory. I will share the poem I wrote for him in a separate blog post.
We hold onto things like clothing, text messages, videos, photos, emails, jewellery, work tools, sporting equipment etc. All of their belongings mean something to us, they are sentimental and treasured. So don’t ask me to part with any items, if I give you something that my other half owned protect it and treasure it as much as I do. If an item that our love owned or made gets broken or goes missing, it does become the end of the world for a while. When this happens your heart sinks, it a feeling of sadness, anger and frustration, then you just miss them and wish they were here.
With all the emotions I have felt throughout this, the emotion that is always a constant is longing. Tears, anger, depression, for me they come and go in waves, but the longing never leaves.
Remembering can be both painful and peaceful. Painful because you miss the things you did together. You know that you will never experience those things again with the one you love. Peaceful are the memories that make you laugh out loud and make you smile thinking about them. Grief is such a mixed bag of emotions, there is no right way or wrong way to grieve. Today in the shops, I saw a packet of starburst lollies that my love and I use to eat. They were our favourite lollies and out of no where I began to cry thinking that we will never again share a packet of those lollies. I will most likely never buy them again. Little reminders like this can set off your day to be a bad day.
Just now I thought of a name he had started to call me, I had started to put on a little weight from the lollies, so my cheeky man began to call me “big girl”. He was a teaser, he got this name from lyrics off a song “big girl, you are beautiful”. We used to laugh about it, I would send him inappropriate photos of myself captioned “big girl loves you” and he would reply “big man loves her”. Thinking of this memory brings a smile to my face.
My memorial tattoo for him is a selection of a few things I hold dear. I chose to have his hand writing tattooed, a red rose that he gave me on a special occasion, and words he wrote to me. They read “I have always loved you and will love you for the rest of my life” and he did. There is also an angel beside his name its replicated from a gold angel he gave me in a locket, he use to call me his angel, now he is my angel.
Tattoos are addictive! I loved having my tattoo for him done, the physical pain (although it wasn’t to bad) took my mind of the emotional pain. I have a few more tattoos in mind that I would like to get as reminders of him. One being his hand sketched from multiple photos and tattooed onto my hip. The other will be his portrait so I can see his beautiful face everyday. Pieces of him will live on me through art.
Forever I will hold him in my heart, my soul and my mind. Our memories will be cherished everyday that I breathe.
Thought’s and love to you all, K
Fierce Widow 