aftermath

I'm beginning to re-find Matt.

After he died, the shock, the pain, it robbed me of him completely. All the joy. All the love. All gone.

Of course he's still gone.

I mean, I've commented before about the tricks of grief. The noise a chair makes - a noise that exactly replicates the sound of Matt turning as he would make himself comfortable. And there's no-one there. I just look at it, and feel alone.

But now...

There's a shop where I'm buying a lot of my food. It sells ready meals, frozen, so I don't need to cook. they are home made, not like the sort of thing you'd buy in a supermarket. The guy who runs the store always chats with me. Asks how I'm doing; if I'm getting over Matt.

When Charlie died, years ago, I ate rubbish for a year. I couldn't bear to cook. So I gained a ton of weight. At least this time, similarly unable to cook, I'm doing better on the diet front.

And yet - I'm beginning to be ready to cook again.

I think of Matt and I can smile.

I see him looking at me in my mind's eye. The way he'd wait for me to be ready when he wanted to run in the park. The way he'd get excited when I'd come back from shopping and he knew I had something he loved in my bag. The way he'd be thrilled when guests were ready to leave...

He loved it when we went for a drive. Last weekend I went for a walk with a friend. I haven't been for a walk really since he died. I don't walk alone. We went to the woods just across the road - it was OK. I missed him. I haven't yet been to the park around the corner; that will have to wait.

The point is - the sharpness of the pain, the inability to understand how I could live through the next day, these things are fading. Grief moves on. When I think of Matt my eyes still fill with tears. That remains. But the range of emotions that come with the tears is growing.

So I am re-finding Matt.

Finding his fun. His stubborn-ness. His charm. His energy. His excitement. His love.

It's been four months. I miss him beyond words. When Charlie died I had photos put in frames and filled my walls with them; I still haven't yet done this for Matt. But I will. At first it was simply too hard; too searingly awful. And now, life after Matt is becoming - possible.

The after Matt. The aftermath. It doesn't get better; but you get better at dealing with it. Mostly.