One coping strategy for me (Mike) is exercise - a day with a run is typically a good day. Thank goodness for endorphins! Being a repetitive type, I tend to ritualise things. So another strategy is to create time each day to spend with Erin. I do this as part of my run. Each morning (it’s usually dark when I get up this time of year) I stop on my run at our wonderful beach where Erin would hang on the monkey bars, play in the waves, swing and slide, toast marshmallows at the midsummer party or watch fireworks at Halloween. This is a place where Erin was particularly happy.
A train often comes by during this time, and when it does the ground shakes, the lights of the level crossing flash and bells clang. It is pretty loud in the still of the morning. The train thunders by with intensity and purpose. And then it moves on into the night. It struck me one morning that the train is an analogy for the process of dealing with grief. Intense at first (ground shaking, lights flashing, bells clanging, intense) and then settling into a numbness in the background continuing on. Like most analogies, this one has its limitations - the train, I am sure, eventually stops, whereas Erin’s absence, for us, does not stop.
4 years on, your support and presence continues to be immensely important and we thank you for continuing to walk alongside us in our journey. We ask you still to please talk to us about Erin, to celebrate life and be present in the moment and to reach out to us when you think of her - or us on this plodding journey of the reconstitution of our lives.
At her Celebration of Life, I said that Erin was my “Bubble of Joy” and talked of the role Mario games in our family life. In Mario’s world, when a player loses their lives they float around in a bubble until another player jumps up from below and pops the bubble returning them to the game. So, I invite you to find some bubbles this holiday period and blow them in memory of Erin, transient and effervescent, but just as present with us in spirit still.