WELCOME TO WIDOWED WORLD

23 December 2008

Greetings,

Reading the editorial I posted last December, just a few days before moving alone into my present home, I realise what a lot has happened over this present year and how my life has changed. Despite the comparative newness of the house, efficient central heating and easy maintenance, everything was decorated blue and grey with a touch of peach and the colours were totally at odds with my own furnishings, there were no curtains at the windows, none of my neighbours were known to me, I felt very lonely, was totally exhausted with the demands of the move and experienced huge frustrations with the ‘services’ providers. The kind act of a thoughtful neighbour who called with a welcoming Christmas card and plant was incredibly touching.

Little by little, there were new carpets & curtains, a log burning stove and steel chimney where there had been no fireplace before, my bedroom and the guest bedrooms took shape, primer and paint transformed black kitchen tiles and slowly the house became my home.  Whilst my husband and I had always discussed décor etc. we each had our own ideas and the results, whilst pleasing, were often a compromise. I thought I knew what my preferences were but moving from a two hundred and fifty year old thatched cottage with six foot ceilings to a three floor townhouse was challenging and a full six months went by before I began to get my head around the new proportions and dimensions. 

Built four years ago, this delightful close has just eighteen houses. Before moving here from different parts of the county or country none of the residents knew each other, so until recently there hasn’t been a great deal of interaction.  However that all changed when my next door neighbour and I decided to invite everyone in the close to a pre Christmas Sunday teatime get-together.  The response was heart-warming; thirty people of all ages from one year upwards came along and we are now growing into a community of mixed ages and backgrounds.  Another lady has invited everyone for drinks & nibbles the Sunday after Christmas, many of us will meet on our landscaped green area to toast in the New Year, a summer barbecue is planned and who knows what else may evolve in the future.  Re-building community spirit is high on my wish list this Christmas and with a little bit of effort it can happen with as few as two people any time and anywhere.

On reflection it’s been a good year, a year of learning to be truly independent, of travelling, discovering what my real interests are and starting to pursue them; of making new friendships and becoming less dependent on a loving family and dear friends who’ve given so much support over the four and a half years since my husband died; of letting go of emotional props and of learning to really laugh again.  Married on Boxing Day, I’ve made the annual pilgrimage to lay flowers but this year primroses and bulbs were planted in the autumn and I’ll delay my visit until they bloom in the spring. Likewise other remnants of my former life have now gently been let go to make way for the new.

For those of you very newly bereaved and struggling with this festive season, I hope my experiences will give you encouragement to believe that whilst things will never be the same, the passing of time does ease grief and there is still much in the world to be grateful for and enjoyed.

With all of you in my thoughts, I send you seasonal greetings and the sentiments of this poem -

Like snowflakes
floating gently,
unexpectedly
to earth,
small kindnesses
touch our lives.
First one, and then another
and another,
until at last the world is
bright and shining
with goodwill.
And once again...
it’s Christmas.

Author unknown

Jacquie