Mindful Monday

I’m sat writing this in the early hours of Tuesday morning, as yesterday ended up so busy and I felt a little frazzled by the end of the day. Learning to give myself grace when I need it, to allow myself time and space to just be instead of trying to push on and do all the things.

It’s been just over six months since my Daddy passed away, six momths of grieving and missing him. Every now and then I catch myself thinking ‘oh, I’ll tell my Dad that when I speak to him next’ to remember there won’t be a next time.

This past weekend, my family finally gathered to scatter his ashes. He’d requested no funeral, no service, just an unattended cremation. So we’d had no closure, not chance to come together in our grief and say a final goodbye.

It felt strange heading back to where I grew up, knowing he wasn’t there, in the last 5/6 years he’s been my only reason to go back. We gathered in the fields he loved so much, behind his house, where we’ve all spent countless hours. Him as a child when they belonged to his parents dairy farm helping out, me as a child running around, walking the dog, foraging and building a bonfire each year.

There’s a tree at the far edge of the field, where his Dad’s ashes are, and so on a rainy Sunday morning that’s where we scattered him. Saying a few words of goodbye, brothers and sisters, aunties and uncles. Finding that closure and sending him off surrounded in our love.

It was sad, but we’ve had time to process our grief, and were just grateful for the chance to say goodbye.

What was harder was going into his house afterwards. The house where I grew up and lived until I was 13. Walking in, the lack of his pressence was startling. The house felt so empty without his energy around. I’m glad I went as I’ll likely not set foot inside the house again but it was disconcerting, and hit me hard.

The weekend felt a little like pulling a plaster off an old wound. It’s opened it back up, the grief that I thought I had worked through is still there, the sadness that I’ll never see him again, that Oren won’t ever remember him, that our weeekends spent in his garden with him won’t happen again.

Grief I think, is just love that we have no one to give. It’s a yearning for one more – one more chat, one more hug, just one more.

The only way through is to feel it – we cannot run from our emotions, so while this weekend was hard, ultimately it was good to say goodbye, to have that chance to go home and lay that chapter to rest.

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