Dominic left us in April, 2014.
At the time all I could manage (barely!) was the twenty-four hours of each long, lonely and pain-wracked day.
After seven-plus years I’ve learned to look ahead, plan ahead and forge ahead to birthdays, holidays, special days and not-so-special days.
But it takes a great deal of effort and often uncomfortable conversations because no matter how long it’s been, I’m still dragging loss and its after affects behind me.
I wrote this in 2016 when I was desperate to communicate how hard it is to try to marry joy and sorrow, celebration and commemoration, light, love, life and darkness, grief and death.
It remains (I think) my most useful post: Grief and Holidays: What the Bereaved Need From Friends and Family