I knew sorting through stuff and moving would be hard for me.
I’ve probably underestimated how hard it is for other people.
Our friends who loved Pete.
All of them have so openly offered to help us move.
And at the same time, hidden then their own struggle at helping sort through Pete and my things.
Well, they’ve sort of hidden it. They haven’t done it very well, despite their trying.
I’m all too well aware of how hard this is on our family.
And if I needed that reiterated, doing things like confirming removalists and trying to buy furniture to fit in to the new house, has brought about some extraordinary emotional melt downs this week.
There has been a lot of talk of Daddy that involved tears. And lots of it has involved sentences with the words moving and without in them.
I have literally just spent the last 30 minute placating a small boy who is so upset his father isn’t moving into a house he knows his Dad would love so much that he has screamed blue murder at me over doing anything relating to a move. The offer of getting someone - maybe a man, one of Daddy’s friends perhaps? - to help him was just met with an outpouring of tears and severe head shaking.
But perhaps while offering them up as assistance to the kids, what I hadn’t considered, was how hard it was going to be for other people to help us move.
I always knew our friends were good people but until Pete died I probably hadn’t really understood how much we meant to them, and really and truly how much they meant to us.
And how so terribly hard them helping us move and sort through things that are special and everyday and lived with by their friend who has now died, would be for them.
Some are throwing themselves in, determined to tackle it all head on with me, to help me, to cry with me, and to hug me along the way.
Some are helping me and being brusk in their appearances at our house as they attempt to try and hide their struggle at dealing with the emotion.
Some are staying far away, offering help, and steeling themselves to swoop in on moving day, get the job done, and leave quickly before the emotion take hold.
Some just can’t. They remain so bereft of losing their friend they cannot handle handling his things.
And all of it is wonderful and ok and understandable.
Because, I so really and truly believe, that Pete is not ours alone to grieve and so I am not upset that some people can’t, I can only offer an understanding of how hard it is for them.
Pete was friends to so many, loved by so many, and we are all lost without him.
I had maybe not thought about how moving his things would impact those people external
to our family.
I don’t have a lot of choice with dealing with his things. Walking in and having his shoes and clothes and things in our wardrobe was so hard that I just had to deal with them. The hurt seeing them every day caused (the kids and me) was too much.
But oddly there are so many things that are still left untouched. His tooth brush is still up on the shower frame.
His ‘wet pack’ still has his razor and aftershave in it on his side of the vanity.
Shifting those things, packing or throwing them away (I surely don’t need his toothbrush??) and then never unpacking them in our new house is all kinds of hard, so I can completely empathise with the friends who are struggling.
I get it.
I have probably just forgotten to give them due credit for just how hard it is for them.
So I’ve resolved that I will need to pull down our bed - find the Allen key in the very safe place I put it when I built it (I think Pete was away on a work jaunt when it arrived...) because so many people have expressed dismay at their inability to enter our bedroom and do anything with our marital bed.
They feel there is something about it being Pete and my bed that they don’t want to be touching.
I get it. I mean, seriously, how often do any of us ever enter our friends’ bedrooms, let alone physically touch their bed.
I’m totally ok with other people helping me pull it down and move it.
But I am also totally ok if they can’t.
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