The First Year

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Permalink Reply by celestia (Suzanne) on July 3, 2012 at 11:03pm

Hi Sanmora,

Good on you for making it through your first year of "firsts". It is indeed a milestone.

I'm quite a ways down this road and anniversaries no longer upset me, but boy they did for a number of years. I would tell myself "it's just a day", and I understood it intellectually, but my heart was another matter. I came to figure out that for me it's also sensory. Like, I notice the sounds, smells, light and shadows, are changing and if I get melancholy for no other reason I know it's because it's October and Bradley died in the Fall. I was never a huge fan of Fall anyhow, but...

It has mellowed so much though.

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Permalink Reply by lovie on July 3, 2012 at 11:19pm

Sanmora,  It does get easier to deal with special days as they repeat each year. I am finishing my 3 year of grief and this year was not nearly as bad as the first two. Like Celestia, certain months do bring us challenges, though, I am going into my July to September swing right now...July is my husband's birthday, August is our anniversary month, and his  death occured in September. But I am preparing myself for it and am ready to move through it without much dispair. I will check out your blog later tonight. Wishing you a better second year of special days. Take care!  Tiffany

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Permalink Reply by Rebirth.Tanya (Tanya) on July 3, 2012 at 11:27pm

Hi Sanmora-

I just read your post- thanks for sharing that bit of history- I definitely could have used those weepers the first few years, and echoing Suzanne and Lovie, it does get better with time, though your heart (and body) will always remember...

Sending you prayers of strength. love, and comfort during this tender time...<3

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Permalink Reply by Greenwood on July 5, 2012 at 1:20pm

I just got past the first year anniversary in May. G died suddenly two weeks after his 53^rd birthday, so I had to get through his birthday first. I didn’t make any plans, just took off from work and that afternoon his sister called and said why don’t we go to dinner at Rossi’s, one of G’s favorite places. We got a group that could go on short notice and it was actually really good to be doing something that he would have liked to do on his birthday, and we all toasted him and it was like he was there. So it gave me an idea of something to plan for his anniversary date.

G was a big bird watcher, and there is a hawk watch park near home that we used to go to, so I got his family and my kids to take off work that day and meet there for a hike and a picnic. It was a beautiful day and we all met up and walked out to the observation platform in the side of a hill that looks out over a hawk migration route. Any time I have ever been there I’ve only seen tiny black specs in the sky, and I warned them all that we probably wouldn’t see much. So we looked and looked and only saw some very far-off birds or some buzzards here and there. We hiked down the trail and had a lovely picnic near a stream and waterfall, with the younger children playing in the water. We all told his favorite stupid jokes and stories and it was really nice. We hiked back up the trail and took one more chance of seeing something from the platform. Nope, just tiny specs here and there. Then as we were all standing in a line at the railing, a Red-Tailed Hawk came swooping down and flew in a straight line past us not more than 100 feet away. He circled one time in the air and gave a screech and flew off. We were stunned.

A few days later one of his sisters had a dream that we were looking at pictures we took that day and G was in all of them.

I really recommend doing something that your loved one would have liked to do as a way of celebrating their memory and keeping them with us.

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