Nearly six months on. Grief check: yep. As painful. A mix of agony, numbness, horror, deep, deep sadness and rage. I miss him. A yawning, aching miss. He was such a colourful dude who filled our lives with his eccentricity, constant chatter and astute, cutting commentary on life. He was one of my cubs.

I’m impressed with the way in which most people (pretty much everyone) have dealt with what’s happened. Embarrassment and awkwardness has been non-existent. I’ve only had one person pretend nothing has happened (married to a surgeon). I don’t think people have avoided us (or if they have, they’ve done it seamlessly). And there’s been a cool balance of allowing space to talk or not to talk. (And to put up with ragey rant moments.) A patience, kindness and respect (never been a big respect person but it’s growing on me) I appreciate.

I was thinking about things on the bus home from work on Friday. Weekends are no different to weekdays anymore. The grief cloak standardises life. Largely ironing out difference between good stuff and the rubbish stuff. Everything is kind of the same. An odd, sad life. Enjoyment pockets with a colourless hinterland. (And before the kids start shrieking at me to get a life, I know (hope) this will change. Just trying to capture the moment and all that…)

Christmas is approaching. A whole newly defined space to manage, tip toe around, avoid as much as possible. A sledgehammer of normative behaviours and actions. Chuck into the mix a bucketful of memories. On a yearly basis. Very, very tough. The other day, at work, I managed to sneak an hours kip on the sofa area in our open plan office. Not many people were around and I was tucked away slightly. I only meant to grab a quick five minutes but the sound of keyboards tapping across a vast space and distant talk was strangely relaxing. I was out like a light. Bright lights and all.

I’m trying to reframe Christmas in the same way. We ain’t got the stresses and work associated with organising typical Christmas celebrations. Maybe this can be reframed as a different sort of white noise. Just gotta sort out the emotional dimension and I could be onto something.

Grief world.