This week has felt a bit like a return to the real world. I feel like I have been super busy with camp and stuff with the boys, and that now is kind of a lull until the next fabulous thing (a 5 week trip to The UK and Germany with D) comes along in August. This year has felt a bit like counting down from one thing to the next, and time has flown by. Right now tho is a bit of a quiet dip and that is a space for grief to creep in.

Part of my counting down, especially at the moment, is July… my month of big yucky dates! It’s a weird thing… I don’t miss Claytie any more than every other day because of those dates, but they loom in my mind as really big things! First I have my wedding anniversary – our last one was to celebrate 25 years married (but 28 together). We had such a nice day both for our wedding so long ago, and then celebrating such a huge milestone. It, for me, is probably the hardest day without him. We never really did a whole lot for it, a nice dinner and a night away in our favourite hotel, but it was ours.

Next, just two weeks later, is his anniversary … 4 years this year, and the nightmares around what that day looked like, what he looked like are starting up again for me. Mostly I try not to let myself go there… it was horrific, and I would rather not focus on that, but my subconscious hasn’t got the message and does what it wants! I know that I cry in my sleep reliving that day. It is hard, and the ongoing impact of his loss is huge.

Two weeks after that is Clayties birthday. This year he would be 51, and grumbling about it I am sure. I know that day, and Father’s Day are particularly hard for the boys. We all try and live our lives the best way we know how, and in ways that he would be so proud of – we do it to honour him, and I think we do it pretty bloody well. Everyday I am amazed by the boys, and how much of Claytie I see in each of them.

So, for now I’m giving myself permission to feel the dip for a little while. I know that I will come out the other side and it will be ok. Mostly I feel like I am living some kind of parallel life – I have all these fabulously great things walking side by side with the sad. I know it’s normal, but it can feel weird. There are so many amazing things still happening this year and going forward, and I know that I’m allowed to (and absolutely should be) giving it my all. As Claytie would say, ‘it is what it is, there is nothing else you can do’.