Just Carry On Breathing

I bought a mug last weekend. An unremarkable, cheap souvenir of a short continental city break. The kind that can be found in kitchens all o...

Take a deep breath and keep on walking. Focus on the far side of the bridge. Don't glance at the spot where we had our photo taken after...

Perhaps Louise is closer to me than I dared hope. Barely a week after writing about the lack of signs, I left the house this morning to disc...

I had resisted the temptation for months until finally I cracked. Sitting under the trees around which Louise's ashes were scattered, in...

When we moved into our current home the one luxury purchase that we allowed ourselves was a large and ever so slightly stylish dining room t...

Its not often that I compare myself to a Roman God. In fact I am reasonably certain that I've never done so before, nor will I ever do s...

I remember the snow so vividly. I had been waiting impatiently for it all winter and now, as I stood in the middle of the road outside the h...

I haven't written to you Sweetheart since my reply to your farewell letter. The tear soaked one that I somehow managed to read out to yo...

Louise was normally a confident passenger, happy to sleep while I was driving long distances. But on this occasion she couldn't settle a...

I've been kidding myself in recent weeks. Proud of my strength and resilience I had begun to believe that I had mastered grief, that I w...

An image sprang in to my mind the other day. It was of one of the iconic pieces of Great War film footage so often replayed on television; g...

At every point in this journey through grief I face loss. Louise's death represented not the end of the process but the beginning. The b...

Early on in this journey I came to the conclusion that the overwhelming experience of bereavement wasn't loss, despair, guilt or anger b...

At just before 5pm yesterday I could have been seen jumping about in uncoordinated fashion rather like an overexcited toddler, arms flailing...

This blog now amounts to something like 43 posts and thousands of words on grief and loss. I am honoured and humbled when people thank me fo...

I had to complete a staff survey at work this week.  There were the usual questions on satisfaction with pay and rewards and understanding o...

Anniversaries take on a particular emotional significance for the newly bereaved, even half anniversaries. Six months ago yesterday Louise t...

Louise was the least materialistic person that I've ever known. She wasn't particularly interested in jewellery, had a relatively mo...

One wouldn't expect to find any beauty in grief. It can appear an unrelentingly dark place; the loneliness and isolation, the shock, the...

Louise took her life five months ago. I know this because the calendar tells me so but such has been the distortion in my subsequent percept...