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The Grief See-Saw Roundabout

Posted on: October 8, 2019 | Posted by: Emma Pearson

(Note: Even though I live in France, I am basically British, and in the UK we call what Americans call a “Teeter Totter” a “See-Saw”; and we call what Americans call a “Merry-Go-Round” a “Roundabout”. At least we did back in the last millennium when I last lived in the UK).

 

I have in my mind’s eye one of those playground attractions

A blend of a see-saw and a roundabout

They actually do exist

I have been on at least one – probably not as a young child

But either as an adult child, or even a middle-aged child

I have long loved big swings and even some exciting slides

 

But I once fell off a roundabout when I was 6 years old

When living in Swansea, and broke my leg

(Fractured actually, but I understood the word “broken” better)

And I considered see-saws to be boring and static

But ones that swing around as they go up and down?

Much more fun

 

Until the sensation is no longer simply pure joy

Rising up and up and up

With an occasional bump back down to keep the

Excitement manageable

Instead it’s now just the occasional up

Out of a vast, all-encompassing sump

Grief – or lost love – wraps its arms around everything

Every emotion, every facet of life

Memories, former milestones, day-to-day living

Dreams and aspirations

So that even golden threads of joy

Can be hard to detect in the sticky, dark roughness

 

It feels overwhelming

Sickening, Vomit-making

The experience of being forever swirling

Spinning out of control of everything

Particularly one’s

Past, Present and Future

 

The moments of reprieve so very short-lived

Snatched treasures, some peace allowed

But just “on loan”

Nothing long enough to feel satisfying

A glimpse, a tantalising taste, a flash of memory

Of a former life lived more simply

Categories: Widowed Emotions, 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 54 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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