This year’s third anniversary of Pete dying was weird.
Weird is not the right word. But it’s the only word I can find that fits.
The first year was all the firsts and working out what the world looked like without him.
The subsequent two have been beset by pandemic and despite our grief putting us behind the 8-ball anyway, has forced us to negotiate lockdowns and remote working and remote schooling and lack of sports and limited visitors and interstate travel.
This one was different - three years is actually a lot of time … 1095 days we have negotiated and lived through and grown up during …
I’d like to think we made the best of the last 12 months and seized opportunities to cross borders and zip line in trees and escape to the farm and see crocodiles when we could … but to be honest the daily grind got the better of all of us.
This is us the week before: smiling, and all together still, but absolutely a bit battle worn.
Let’s not even begin to talk about how much this mentally destroyed me - family photos without a family member. Nice idea. Executed well. Absolutely heart breaking.
We are pretty sick of one another’s company and so the idea of sitting around at home again watching the clock tick away the anniversary was the worst thing we could do.
We needed to get out and away. But in my usual organised way, I couldn’t get my head around what and where and how ... and flipping covid wasn’t helping with seemingly every beachside town full of it in the lead up.
So once again a villager came to save me from my disorganisation… the same one who saves me from it every time, and she just found me somewhere and booked it and pulled me back together and sent me on my way.
A day at the beach with just us was what we needed. It absolutely included coffee and wine and sunburn and exasperated sighs but we survived.
The emotional hangover was awful. It’s like everything builds up to the day and then afterwards its this release of pent up everything.
There was much yelling and tears and tantrums. To be honest, dealing with the hangover was worse than the anniversary.
It was also weird because it highlighted the duality of life and love and loss.
It’s a particularly weird position to be in when you are grieving the loss of a much loved dead husband when you have an actually alive person in your life you care about.
Once again, this whole weird grief train that I thought I’d worked out how to drive, threw a new spanner in the works …
But we negotiated all of that ok… so I figured why not toss in a rash decision.
So on the day of Pete’s 3rd anniversary I booked in to get a tattoo.
For literally years now I have been wrangling with my own feelings about this.
I have not ever had a tattoo. Neither did Pete. I knew I did want something. I just didn’t know what. The internet and widows group is full of everything from single marks to elaborate works of art to celebrate dead spouses.
During the year, the kids found a card Pete had written me from before we were married stuck up the back of a coffee table that had the words I wanted in his all capital letters chicken scratch handwriting.
Then, in fear of not being able to commit to permanency, I waited and waited and waited for a temporary one to arrive from the US (since the beginning of September!) that never did.
And so when the anniversary arrived, on a whim I messaged the tattoo place so see when they could fit me in … they responded with an automated ‘we are not taking new clients’ message.
And I figured that was a sign it shouldn’t happen.
Until they responded personally with: Absolutely Liz! Come in, we can do this on Tuesday.
So today I got some weird pleasure out of feeling this scratched into my arm in his handwriting.
A reminder that I was absolutely loved by him.
And a reminder to me to love myself - which I actually do very poorly.
I teared up seeing his writing on my arm.
I got home and one child welled up.
One burst into tears saying: It’s Daddy’s writing!!
Which made me realise it’s actually perfect.
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