Oh this is so beautiful, every word is heartfelt and the picture you paint is so incredibly vivid. I was transported back to my own grandparents’ house, where my mind walked around the rooms, opening cupboards, seeing familiar crockery again and the lard cup in the kitchen with the broken handle. A house I haven’t stepped in for around 14 years, and I could almost run my fingers across the texture of the wallpaper hung by my grandad, and hear my grandma saying “hello love” from her chair in front of the tv playing a black and white film. I lost both of them a few years before they died. And they died in 2008 and 2014. It’s been such a long time and it feels like yesterday. Thank you for this precious gift of a moment with them in my present. ❤️
I put tulips and daffodils in Mum’s vases. Loss gets quieter and deeper. At night I stand at the bedroom window and the crescent moon lies in the black sky, just above eye level. An empty bowl, a sign of the loneliness to come, full of promise.
A beautiful sense of the here and now Sasha, and the losses and gains of our lives.
‘I had my kids late and my parents got ill a bit early’ - there is such beauty in this simple sentence, everything it involves and everything it omits. A shorthand for love and loss. It hints at the possibility of acceptance, however far one might feel from that and however real-life acceptance must always include days of grief and anger and comparison and the not-fairness of it all. It reminded me of something from a Cheryl Strayed advice column that I've come back to many times over the years:
"When my son was six he said, “We don’t know how many years we have for our lives. People die at all ages.” He said it without anguish or remorse, without fear or desire. It has been healing to me to accept in a very simple way that my mother’s life was 45 years long, that there was nothing beyond that. There was only my expectation that there would be—my mother at 89, my mother at 63, my mother at 46. Those things don’t exist. They never did."
Thank you so much for your thoughtful and helpful response Chloe. I love that quote. It’s very powerful, and freeing somehow. Yes, the complicated relationship with acceptance, feeling the comfort of it and losing it again, then (hopefully) circling back... I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently, how we can choose it for so many different things and situations. But as you say, not always easy to do
Beautiful Sasha. Time speeds up. Savour every moment.
Oh this is so beautiful, every word is heartfelt and the picture you paint is so incredibly vivid. I was transported back to my own grandparents’ house, where my mind walked around the rooms, opening cupboards, seeing familiar crockery again and the lard cup in the kitchen with the broken handle. A house I haven’t stepped in for around 14 years, and I could almost run my fingers across the texture of the wallpaper hung by my grandad, and hear my grandma saying “hello love” from her chair in front of the tv playing a black and white film. I lost both of them a few years before they died. And they died in 2008 and 2014. It’s been such a long time and it feels like yesterday. Thank you for this precious gift of a moment with them in my present. ❤️
Thank you Louise, I’m so glad it sparked those lovely familiar memories for you 💛
This was so beautiful :
I put tulips and daffodils in Mum’s vases. Loss gets quieter and deeper. At night I stand at the bedroom window and the crescent moon lies in the black sky, just above eye level. An empty bowl, a sign of the loneliness to come, full of promise.
❤️
Thank you x
A beautiful sense of the here and now Sasha, and the losses and gains of our lives.
‘I had my kids late and my parents got ill a bit early’ - there is such beauty in this simple sentence, everything it involves and everything it omits. A shorthand for love and loss. It hints at the possibility of acceptance, however far one might feel from that and however real-life acceptance must always include days of grief and anger and comparison and the not-fairness of it all. It reminded me of something from a Cheryl Strayed advice column that I've come back to many times over the years:
"When my son was six he said, “We don’t know how many years we have for our lives. People die at all ages.” He said it without anguish or remorse, without fear or desire. It has been healing to me to accept in a very simple way that my mother’s life was 45 years long, that there was nothing beyond that. There was only my expectation that there would be—my mother at 89, my mother at 63, my mother at 46. Those things don’t exist. They never did."
x
Thank you so much for your thoughtful and helpful response Chloe. I love that quote. It’s very powerful, and freeing somehow. Yes, the complicated relationship with acceptance, feeling the comfort of it and losing it again, then (hopefully) circling back... I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently, how we can choose it for so many different things and situations. But as you say, not always easy to do
I love reading your articles. The way you describe things makes them seem immediate and real. I wonder if you’ll hear more from your Grandma.. 💕
Thank you so much Daisy, that’s made my day
So many beautiful turns of phrases Sasha - I especially liked “though it’s like trying to hold onto spring” and “Loss gets quieter and deeper”.
Ahh thank you Ellen! I’m particularly pleased you liked them