Echoes of loss

Today is Sunday 10th March. It is Mother's Day and also the eighth anniversary of Blacksmith Paul's death. My son is on his court-ordered visit to his dad and my daughter is still sleeping and has probably forgotten this special day, I think. My partner has stayed long enough to bring me breakfast in bed but he has his own family to tend to. My own mother died years ago so I find myself alone with no plans for the day. It's ok. I'm an introvert and I like to be alone, it's a rare treat, but it's still a conundrum to know how to mark the occasion. 

Yesterday, I posted a picture of Paul on his memorial page on Facebook. He's looking thoughtful and hammering a hunk of metal in a forge somewhere. I didn't take the photo but I consider it appropriate. I feel I must post something in case people think I have forgotten him and, at the same time, feel like a broken record for still going on about it. I mention that a few of us might walk to his bench today and invite others to join us, but it's all a bit last-minute and, in the end, the weather and illnesses are against us. We rearrange for another time. 

I sit in bed and wonder if I should edit my novel or write a blog. I have a vague idea that I'd like to write something about the way the loss reverberates still, eight years on, and how badly I am still affected by what happened, by the trauma, but when I open my blog, I realise that's what I wrote last year. I have not moved on much. I skim some more words off my manuscript and decide to walk anyway. 

It is wet in the park. I walk past family groups, gamely trudging in waterproofs along the Porter Valley and I am grateful to be alone. I buy myself a tea and remember the day that Paul and I walked along this path, holding hands and then separating as we passed my daughter's friend; my children didn't know we were an item until I told them I had found him dead. It was not how I planned to introduce him. 

My new partner and I live apart, coming together and separating like the paths through the woods. We have taken things slowly, stopping and starting, bumping like sticks along a rocky stream, getting stuck and freeing ourselves again. We have been talking recently about how we might find a way to spend more time together and have started browsing Rightmove, looking hypothetically for some ideal way in which to merge our lives though things regularly feel precarious. I am so afraid to love someone I could lose. But I look through the trees and think that this is where I would like to live and I ask Paul to wield some otherwordly magic and make it so. 

Familiar faces round the bend - Paul's family walking through the rain on Mother's Day. I've not seen them since pre-Covid and we stop to chat. We remember Paul and his mum who died shortly after her son. We talk about seals at Flamborough and the family burial plot and, for a moment, I'm back on the road to Bridlington with Paul alongside me pointing out the village where his ancestors dwelt. He is briefly resurrected in my mind and I am so happy to speak to someone who remembers him. They are happy too that I am with someone new. They have seen us on Facebook and tell me that Paul would approve. I think so too. He would be so pleased, they say. He would want you to be happy. I know they're right. I tell them I am afraid. You can never know what's around the corner, his sister says, we have to keep moving on. I nod and we walk our separate ways. 

The door to Shepherd's Wheel stands open. Fitting, I think, to power up the wheel on Blacksmith Paul's day. I watch the band rotate around the stones and remember standing here with Paul that day. I think of my great-grandfather working penknife blades on this river and of Paul hammering hot metal in a forge, of the way something so solid and rough can be transformed by heat into something shiny and new. I am like metal, I think, transformed, yes, but shaped by so much grief, loss running like blood through my veins, memories of those I've loved imprinted in my soul. Outside, I watch the water power the wheel as the river flows on, a tributary making its unstoppable way to join the sea. I walk to Paul's bench and see the flowers that his family have left. I touch the wood and imagine he knows that I'm there sharing a moment with his ghost. 

I am soaked to the skin when I get home. My daughter is up and surprises me with tea and fresh-baked free-from cookies. She presents me with a picnic set that she's made from clay and she's written a handmade card to 'the best mother I have ever encountered'. I am deeply touched. We have been through a lot, this girl and I. I read a book about motherhood in the bath, put my pyjamas back on and return to my bed to write. The boy will be home soon. 'I hope you've had a lovely day,' texts a friend. It is not a typical Mother's Day perhaps but this is not a typical life. Perhaps there is nothing typical. And it has been a treat, to be alone, without the heavy weight of expectations.

I browse Facebook. All of those posts. To the mothers and the non-mothers. To those who've lost a mother or hate their mother. Careful posts making sure no-one is left out. Do I need, I think, to add to all this noise? Someone I know posts a picture of her rainbow baby. She grieves still for the one she lost but is so grateful today to be a mother. I am happy for her. For some of us loss and love are constant bedfellows. And then a meme, words from Mary Oliver that echo regularly in my mind: 

'To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.'  

I try, Mary. I really do try.