Blue Tits

I'm reading a book right now, Tuesdays with Morrie. It's ok, if a little sentimental, about a man coming to terms with dying and a younger mans record of the journey to the end. I've just read a chapter in the book where Morrie talks about waves travelling across the ocean, bobbing along happily until they see the shoreline, one wave is terrified that he is about to crash to certain death but the wave behind him reassures him, he says "you're not just a wave, you're part of the ocean".

When I read it I was reminded of something we shared in the spring, when the blue tits came to call. They had wintered in our garden, a pair of them and we watched them and fed them through the winter and into the spring. One day you were tidying the garden and called me, the blue tits appeared to be building a nest in the bird box, in direct line of sight from our patio doors.

The weeks passed and we were looking forward to summer, watching the blue tits every day, first building the nest, then lining it all, then sitting on the eggs, back and fore from morning to night they continued. Eventually our patience was rewarded, especially the children's as in late May last year we saw the first fledglings peering out of the box. Jessica's 6th birthday was rolling around and the tiny morsels of birds, after much constant attention from who must have been by then two very exhausted parents chose that day to fly the nest. As you can imagine we were all very excited about the event, took many pictures and felt almost as proud as the parents must have.

Next morning, I got up and you were already up, out in the garden, out I wandered in my slippers and your dressing gown to see what you were up to. Two of the three fledglings were dead, you were removing them from the garden before the children woke. I was heartbroken and actually have a lump in my throat typing this, all day I watched the third bird hop around the garden, it's parents dismissing the fact that the other two had died and just getting on with things.

You reassured me, death is part of nature and we are part of nature too you said. We mourn it and make a big deal of things because we think we are above nature but we are not and what happened to those birds could happen to any one of us and most of us would do well to remember it. We are born, we live our lives busying ourselves with things that probably aren't important, and then we die and it's over.

There endeth the most important lesson you ever taught me.

However, you were wrong to an extent, as much as I hate to disagree with you now that you are gone because we are above nature. In every thing you did for me, in every way you touched my life, in every way you touched heart and in everything you are to me. Death ends life, not relationships and that's what sets us apart from nature, because you Geoff will live on, in every heart you touched forever, where those blue tits will only live on in us.

That last fledgling? It's never gone far and we've seen a lot of it over the cold weather, let's see what the spring brings this year. Everything that lives must die.

Is this a normal way to feel?

Death's suitcase

I've learned a lot in the last few weeks but it still doesn't cease to amaze me how someone as wonderful, charasmatic and larger than life as you could be gone without trace. And without trace it is, as it seems that as we come to the end of our lives we pack a case for our final journey, we put in death's suitcase all the things that are the essence of us.

These things are the unimportant things that we put no value on in life, your smell, your voice (although that was something I could never get enough of), the way your face creases up in expression, the little things you did, your mannerisms. All the things that made you, you all packed up to be taken in an instant like you were.

Thank goodness for photos, audio clips and old film, the memories we make along the way and the things we steal from death's suitcase to help us on our journey in grief.

These are the thoughts I had while watching an old film of us in Paris last year. I wish we'd had time to steal more from death's suitcase but the time to leave came too soon.

Is this a normal way to feel?

When you just know

You know that moment when you just know you'll be with someone forever? Maybe you don't. I was cynical before I met you but you changed all that. There was a moment when I just knew I had to have you, it made no sense at all.

You weren't my type, at all. Anyone who knew us who reads this will be laughing now I'm sure but I soon realised you were perfect for me, we were perfect for each other.

You were a butcher, much older than me but I wasn't sure how much. In fact it took me quite a while to work that bit out. Christmas was approaching, 2004, you'd caught my eye in the summer.

You used to say that you'd hate to be remembered as a womaniser, it was a title you didn't think fitted you. I don't know why you worried but you used to say you had never chased a woman in your life. At that I'd laugh, you never needed to as far as I could see.

I came in to get my Christmas meat, one of the lads had mistletoe, much laughing and cheek kissing ensued and then suddenly you were in front of me. Earring in, Christmas hat on, collars turned up, laughing. You kissed me, square on the lips, a long lingering kiss. All the boys in the shop were whistling and as suddenly as you kissed me, you stopped, smiled and walked off.

I was and still am absolutely blown away by that moment, I fell in love with you on the very spot.

I'm smiling and laughing at the memory of that Christmas, the knot in my chest like a physical pain.

Is this a normal way to feel?