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Life being life
1/3/21 16:40 Lockdown has taught us all some valuable lessons. Many people have suffered from low mood and general poor mental health and I can't imagine how people who live on their own have coped. I am endlessly grateful for the companionship of my family over this period - we all get along very well and despite our moods matching or otherwise and we have team cooked and played games and watched TV and cut each other's hair etc. It's been a blast.
Our oldest son has moved out this weekend to live with his girlfriend. They have missed each other so and I could not be happier or more proud of them to be staring their lives together. Happiness and sadness in equal measure. Happy that he is moving on and loving and living, sadness that a period of our lives has come to an end and now there are five of us at home.
Since March last year several members of our extended family have been born - we have yet to meet them - and today we had to say goodbye to our dear sister-in-law. We were fortunate to have seen her in September in the short break between lockdowns when we visited Devon. We met up with them twice, sharing a meal and lots of laughs and love. I will never forget that precious time we spent with them. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer only a week or two later and it was the last time we would ever see her. She was an inspirational character, outspoken, confident and clever. She knew her mind and was an advocate of socialism, environmental awareness and a lifelong Labour supporter. And she and her husband had a relationship that many would aspire to. They were best friends and spouses in the deepest sense of the word. I miss her enormously already.
Life goes around and around, birth and death are just two sides of the same tiny slice of experience we call life. The joy of one is tempered by the sorrow of the other and in between there are other types of happiness and misery - the trick is to embrace them both and let yourself fully understand that the tiny slice that you are given is precious beyond measure. I read something today - a quote from an unlikely source - Wandavision, a Marvel tv show! It was "What is grief, if not love, persevering." How true that is.
Lockdown has given us the space to experience the joy of family and the bitterness of loss at a pace that we can rarely find the time for. I hope I remember once we are back out in the world post COVID, that taking time to think about these life events is a valuable use of an hour or two.
Our oldest son has moved out this weekend to live with his girlfriend. They have missed each other so and I could not be happier or more proud of them to be staring their lives together. Happiness and sadness in equal measure. Happy that he is moving on and loving and living, sadness that a period of our lives has come to an end and now there are five of us at home.
Since March last year several members of our extended family have been born - we have yet to meet them - and today we had to say goodbye to our dear sister-in-law. We were fortunate to have seen her in September in the short break between lockdowns when we visited Devon. We met up with them twice, sharing a meal and lots of laughs and love. I will never forget that precious time we spent with them. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer only a week or two later and it was the last time we would ever see her. She was an inspirational character, outspoken, confident and clever. She knew her mind and was an advocate of socialism, environmental awareness and a lifelong Labour supporter. And she and her husband had a relationship that many would aspire to. They were best friends and spouses in the deepest sense of the word. I miss her enormously already.
Life goes around and around, birth and death are just two sides of the same tiny slice of experience we call life. The joy of one is tempered by the sorrow of the other and in between there are other types of happiness and misery - the trick is to embrace them both and let yourself fully understand that the tiny slice that you are given is precious beyond measure. I read something today - a quote from an unlikely source - Wandavision, a Marvel tv show! It was "What is grief, if not love, persevering." How true that is.
Lockdown has given us the space to experience the joy of family and the bitterness of loss at a pace that we can rarely find the time for. I hope I remember once we are back out in the world post COVID, that taking time to think about these life events is a valuable use of an hour or two.
