I Wasn’t Expecting That

Well, here’s something I wasn’t expecting, since Julie passed I have been focused on only two things, keeping life going both mentally and financially and trying to get to a place where I could be sure in myself that Julie was in fact still around in spirit each day. If you’ve read the previous blogs you will see that I had pretty much achieved that goal but it seemed that maybe I would always looking for more and in fact that is the mission for this journey. Anyway last Sunday I had the chance to do someone else a good turn and did a sort of volunteer day helping to build a disabled ramp and the place was about an hour’s drive away. As I was getting ready, I said out loud, hey Julie how about you come with me today, we might enjoy the drive and you could show me some birds as they seem to be your specialty?

I set off and a few minutes down the road, as I got out of the town centre, suddenly four white parrots came from nowhere and flew in formation in front of the car at about windscreen level for maybe four or five seconds then turned off and flew up and out of sight. I was shocked to be honest and had to gather my thoughts together, surely this can’t be coincidence I thought. From that moment on I decided to stop over thinking this whole thing and just accept and have faith that her spirit is with us and continue as planned.

Thing is, this is not the bit I wasn’t expecting. I had mistakenly thought that if I can reach a level of belief in Julie being with me in spirit which I now have, that it would make the grieving process so much more manageable, but it turns out that it has no effect whatsoever. The emptiness, the loneliness and the lack of physical communication has now become a bit overpowering again like it was in the first months and it drains your energy. I wasn’t ready for this and the last two days have seen me take a giant step backwards and I know there’s nothing to do but keep on going but it feels so hard again.

I have been keeping away from people because I was scared of dragging everything up again but I think I know now that it is always there whether you talk about it or not, so might try talking to others who are going through the same and see if anything comes out of it.