2 years later..

2 years! It's been 2 years since you left this world. I can't quite believe it, 2 years seems like such a long time. Yet it feels somehow like even more time has passed than that. But at the same time I remember everything about that day as if it was yesterday. I guess time is such a strange thing in that way, for something to feel like it was years and years ago yet also just like yesterday at the same time. Anyway, this post isn't about time, it's about how I'm feeling on this ridiculously unreal date. I thought I was doing ok and that this upcoming date wasn't affecting me, but actually i don't think I'm ok really. I think I've almost been suppressing it and trying to keep my head high. I know I've done amazing work on processing my grief and everything that happened, I've made huge progress and if you had told me 2 years ago that I would be feeling like I am there is no way I would have believed you. However, I think this past week I have been trying really hard to stay at that level of okay-ness, almost like I didn't want to 'regress' or have a little blip. Which is actually a bit silly to say now I've written that because it's totally normal in grief to have these ups and downs and I allow myself to feel all those downs and lows. But it's almost been like I didn't want to let this specific date be a big thing. If i really think of it with all the progress I've made, this date is no different really to any other day. You're still gone, and I think once the one year mark came and went the specific dates stopped having so much importance. It didn't seem to make much difference anymore if it was 1 year and 2 months or 1 year and 5 months etc.

If I'm honest with myself I think it's been slowly creeping up one me over the past couple of weeks, like my subconscious was feeling and remembering everything and I've just been trying to keep a brave face on the outside. Many more moments lately of feeling sad, looking at photos and instead of smiling and enjoying the memory it's been making me upset. I had a little silent cry in the middle of the gym yesterday when picking up my weights from the rack. I was just about to do some bench press and it made me upset because you were the one who taught me how to bench press correctly and really you were the one who first introduced me to weight training. I wished more than anything in that moment that we could go to the gym together again. Fond memories of when we lived in Edinburg and were lucky enough to live a 2 minute walk away from an awesome David Lloyds gym with a pool and tennis and everything. We used to walk along the water front to the gym and both do our weight training and then we would sit in the restaurant and have dinner together. The more I think back on our time in Edinburgh the more I remember how awesome it was, and the more I wish I had appreciated it more at the time.

It's been a weird mix lately of really wanting to remember every detail about this day 2 years ago. Sometimes I wish I could go back to that moment to really remember and picture everything about how you were and exactly what I said to you. But then I also kind of just want to move on from that day and not give it too much thought. That's easier said than done of course, with that day being the worst one of my life. It's really quite surreal to think that I watched you leave this world. That I was the only one there with you. That moment was just for you and me, quite literally "until death do us part". I never thought we would get there only a few months after marriage. Being there with you in that moment was simultaneously awful, traumatic, tragic and yet somehow special. I'm really glad I was there, I would have absolutely hated it had I not been there and would have instead received a call. I know I was there with you until the very end and that gives me a sense of peace. And it's somehow comforting to know that only I really know how it happened and what you looked like. I was looking back at some pictures the other day of that time, we got a few pictures of you and little J on our visit to see you in the hospice. But honestly I almost want to delete those photos, they really shock me to look at. I personally don't remember you like that. Maybe because I saw you everyday I didn't really notice how bad or how different you looked. Or maybe my brain has just blocked that out and is choosing to remember you at your healthiest and best, which if that's the case then I am grateful for that. Because honestly those photos are haunting. It's not you, it's some awful, terribly ill version of you. Actually it's like looking at a picture of cancer at it's worst. I really don't think I ever want to show little J those photos, I have much nicer ones of the 2 of you together when you were still feeling ok.

Today the plan originally was to go back and do the same hike I did last year as I really wanted to make that a tradition for this day the 18th of July. Unfortunately however I am slightly injured at the moment (thanks tendonitis!) so the hike wasn't the best idea sadly. I hope I'll be fitter next year to continue the tradition, as I really enjoyed going up there with Nessie last year and remembering our awesome times there. Today instead now I will be going paddle boarding on the lake, not something you particularly enjoyed although I do have fond memories of paddle boarding with you in Corsica and being in hysterics every time you comically fell in! Another thing I'll be doing today is going to the cinema which was perhaps the one activity we used to do the most together. I'm thinking I might get you your own bucket of popcorn and Coke Zero to feel like you're there with me. I'm very lucky to have my lovely friend Hayley with me today so I'm not alone in it this year.

So how am I feeling on this 2 year mark since losing you? Mixed feelings - shock, disbelief, sadness, anger, all of grief's greatest hits really. It's not just the grief of losing you, its the grieving for all that you lost and all that you could have been. I know without a doubt that you would have eventually found the right project and would have created something epic. Forever and always in awe of how you taught yourself to be such a good software developer and of all the projects you did create. You never gave yourself enough credit. I'm sad that the world will lose out on whatever you would have created. I'm sad that J will never get to know you. The other day he asked me where you were, and said "where is daddy? go find daddy?" To say my heart broke is an understatement, it's just so so unfair that this amazing little boy has to grow up without his dad. But I always do my best to talk to him about you and to make sure he knows that daddy loves him. Oof that got the tears flowing again!

I guess today is just going to be a huge roller coaster of emotions and ups and downs, I've just got to ride the waves like I always do.

2 years without you, but never forgotten my big sloth.

Love you forever and for always.