Grief Notes by Josephine Patrick
Death is actually all around. It is true and it is uncomfortable. It feels so contrary to what is actually going on in our house. LP is watching The Loud House and I’ve got dance music pouring out of the kitchen speaker. The kitchen is a tip and it is all my doing. I’m at it again- […]
Continue ReadingIt is well. Well, is it? Can it be? I mostly forgot what it feels like to be part of the pandemic when Seb died. What took over was far bigger for us. An inconvenience in the tragedy. I didn’t get to have a significant final conversation with him, to close the book. We got […]
Continue ReadingI am missing the way that things just happen by chance. There is nothing unplanned about the encounters I have now. That we have. If you have bumped into someone recently; I envy you. Almost everything I do is constructed by me and with that comes the accountability I feel for it all. In days […]
Continue ReadingI am talking to my plants in silence. They don’t need to hear my voice. They tell me that they can’t all bloom at once. There are not latent, they are working. Under the soil. They don’t have anything to prove. I trust their actions, they know what they are about. I have trodden on […]
Continue ReadingI thought I might tire of hearing people say how sorry they are for my loss. But I’m not. I am doing annoyed typing whilst aggressively eating a bowl of yogurt with honey and walnuts in- Do I know It’s Christmas? Yes. That’s what the walnuts are for. I don’t want to spoil my dinner […]
Continue ReadingI have just been doing a bit of sewing. A little something for me- Merry Christmas Josephine. I let myself do it. Around lunchtime I gave myself full permission to do whatever I wanted with the rest of today; stuff especially for me. I left the wet washing in the machine. I had a cuppa […]
Continue ReadingNo matter the amount of time I spend being upbeat and engaged with thoughts of all the things that life will offer up; there is always a grief anvil waiting to drop on my weary bonce. Sometimes it is letters addressed to him, or letters from people who don’t know that he’s dead; always wanting […]
Continue ReadingI’m in the office. This is my what’s next? The place that was once Seb’s little work hub. He spent hours in here. It is very different. I have made myself a place. It’s a bit like I was standing in some very large footprints; I couldn’t fill them so I’ve stepped aside and marked […]
Continue ReadingI was all ready to write about Seb’s birthday. I thought about all the rituals we’d built over the decade we had been in love. I had picked out all the bits that made me feel just so sad, sentiments that I have had to pack away. The cards I’ll never write. Then I just […]
Continue ReadingEverything is fine. Don’t think too hard. My eyes are closed. My chest hurts and that familiar sickness is back again. I want these days to be over, while I want to hold them in my hands for comfort. The Sunday is back. Morrissey might have had it right on this one. We will be catching […]
Continue Reading