It was 2 years ago today that Carys died.   I was trying to think what other days marked such a sharp change, and I’m not sure that I have experienced one.  The day I was born, but I guess I was too young to be aware.  The day I left school, but that was just like the end of every other school term really and certainly not traumatic, I was ready to move on.  The day I left home, but I was already living elsewhere and it was really a formality.  The day I got married, but we’d been living together for long enough that it was a gentle, welcome transition.  The day my first child was born, but that came in due course and with 9 months preparation.  In short, I have experience no other such abrupt change in my life.  I know others have experienced similar rough transitions and they are always shocking, perhaps devastating, but oddly, not terminal.

The odd thing to record on the other side of this chasm is, in a way, how much of my personal landscape remains the same.  I live in the same house, in the same town, do the same job and am surrounded by the same people & family.  Change is so complex and multi-layered.  Not everything has to change to change how everything feels and how you related to it.  When you change, your world changes.  Sometimes, things happen to change you; but never forget that the reverse is also true; that if you change yourself, then you change your relationship with everything at the same time.  So if the world isn’t a comfy place for you, rather than waiting for it to change for you, you can decide to change who you are and where you fit in.  Easily said and painful to do, but true none-the-less.

I’m making good progress at rebuilding my life.  My children are still finding the journey very painful and my inability to make that easier is hard.  This is a journey that you can only take on your own.  If you are walking this path, then I pray that you find light and love, warmth and comfort, for they still exist…  I don’t know if Time heals, but it is a key ingredient in this process; it is like a current and you can swim with it or against it but it does carry you along willy nilly.