Fierce Widow

Whether I am prepared or not, whether I am happy about it or not, I cannot deny that every ending is a new beginning.

Memories bought back as though our life was being lived yesterday. Stored memories that hadn’t come to mind for fourteen years, bought back in a flash with finding a pencil case. His pencil case from when we were in high school. Coloured checks of green and black, his name written in white out on the outside of the case, filled with the same pens and pencils that had sat on his desk in class.

With finding his pencil case I found memories of us sitting side by side during class. As though it were yesterday I can see us walking together through the high school, holding his pencil case in one hand and my hand in the other. His back pack slung over one shoulder, his cheeky smile making my heart skip a beat. Fourteen years ago, remembered like yesterday.

Around this time last year, my love and I took a walk down memory lane one night. We walked from his family home, to the high school where we met. Making our way onto the school sports oval, he took off his jacket and laid it over the wet grass for us to sit on. Being winter it was freezing but we rested in each other’s embrace sharing body warmth and looking up at the stars above. For hours we laughed and reminisced on our teenage years together, telling stories and confessing thoughts behind our actions when we had been together in school.

A night that will forever be remembered as though it were yesterday.

Along with finding his pencil case I also came across a wooden box that he had made during a wood work class we had together. Not only do I remember the class I remember standing next to him as he ran his pencil over the timber so he knew where to cut it. I remember watching him saw the timber and craft it together into something new. When I opened the timber box I found love letters and cards that I had given to him when we were in high school. I had kept all of my high school memorabilia of our time together and he had kept his. Tears flowed as I read the words I had written to him so many years ago. And laughter escaped me reading poetry I wrote to him when we were 15 years old. My heart was warmed that he had kept them all these years just as I had kept mine.

 

These priceless items had been sitting in a storeroom in his family home. Only to be found and cleaned out because the home will no longer belong to him or his family. Heart ache surrounds this second loss, every room in his home contains hundreds of memories. Memories that will need to be taken with myself and his family into a new home. Another ending to a chapter that should never have finished.

This home had been in his family for over 17 years, at the time of his passing we had moved back into it and were renovating it. Bringing the walls back to life, as it hadn’t been lived in for a few years. The kitchen pantry was home to a permanently marked height chart that recorded my loves heights as he grew from a boy to a man. His brother’s heights, his mother’s height, his son’s height and my height also marked on the wall that we planned to mark with many more measurements.

Having to leave our home behind is one thing but leaving the wall behind was something I wasn’t prepared to do.

“One day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve always wanted to do. Do it now”    

What did I want to do? What would my love have done? Not wanting to implicate myself, let’s just say I have no regrets. The house was in the process of renovations and in need of a new pantry anyway.

I didn’t and still don’t want a new beginning. At this stage in my grief I don’t feel that I will ever accept this to be life. I long for the life we had and the happily ever after that was supposed to be. I refuse to live with regrets and fear now, life is to fragile and short. I will keep my love with me always. Hold onto the original beginnings, the life and love we shared. Our love will be present with me everyday, with every new beginning.