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The School Bus That Thumps Me In The Gut

Posted on: May 9, 2023 | Posted by: Emma Pearson

Music, yes – of course music does it. Lyrics or no lyrics – same same.

Places too.

And faces – duh.

All of those are triggers – triggers for a fast tumble down a Grief-soaked spiral.

But the evening school bus?

School buses, in fact, for there were two a day – one for kids up to age 15 or so, in Collège/middle school and one for the older ones in Lycée/high school who had longer school days.

The first arriving in our village at about 17h15 after school finished at 16h30.
The second arriving about 18h10, for those finishing at 17h30.Kids spilling out of the bus. Hanging around a little at the bus stop that is literally fifty metres away from the house. Finishing off conversations that had started on the bus. Then hugging or slapping one another before heading off to their various homes.

I rarely see those buses anymore. They are coaches, rather than buses, actually. And burgundy. An unusual colour for a school bus. Rather luxurious to my eyes – at least compared with the school buses I knew.

But boy do they hit me in the heart and punch me in the gut.

When I see them, such as when I wander out to collect the local vegetables on a Tuesday evening, it’s a full body experience.

The forgotten friendships.

The prematurely curtailed conversations.

The aborted dreams.

And that’s without even knowing that one of the school kids on the bus died before their time.

Such Grief at the sight of a school bus.

Categories: Child Loss, Widowed, Widowed Emotions, Widowed by Illness, Multiple Losses

About Emma Pearson

My life is a whirling mix of swishy strands, dark and glowing brightly, rough and silky smooth – all attempting to be seen, felt and integrated at once. Here are some of my themes.

I am British and now recently also French (because of Brexit), and I have lived in France for the past 21 years. I am 55 and sometimes feel to be an “older widow”, and yet I feel so young. I lost my best male friend Don to bowel cancer in September 2015, my brother Edward to glioblastoma in January 2016, my husband Mike to pancreatic cancer in April 2017, and my sweet youngest child, Julia, to grief-related suicide, in July 2019. And I met a new love (let’s call him Medjool, after my favourite kind of date), off one single meeting on a dating website. Our relationship has exploded into blossom as of June 2019.

I am widowed and I am in a new relationship. I have lost a best friend, a sweet brother, a beloved husband and a precious child, and I still have both parents who are alive and well. I live my days with my grief wrapped in love and my love wrapped in grief. I no longer even try to make sense of anything. I just hope to keep on loving and living for as long as I can, while grieving the losses of loves that are no longer breathing by my side.

I suspect my writing here will be a complex mish-mash of love and sorrow. I also write on http://www.widowingemptynests.com/.

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