Remembering
After my husband passed away there was a period of time where it all went dark, where my creative brain could not create. This was one of the first pieces I wrote when my creativity tap turned back on.
Which champagne should you drink at a wake?
Planning an event when your world has been rocked to its core is just the weirdest experience ever. As my late husband had served in the army the local RSL seemed the appropriate place for his wake. Covid was in full flight which meant that we were restricted to 50 guests.
He was diagnosed terminal out of the blue (completely healthy apart from a small lump). It was a quick fight with an aggressive cancer. Being a confident man in his late 30s with 2 young children, he was in denial, so didn’t plan for the worst but having spent a lot of time at Peter Macallum I can imagine there are people (especially older people with grown up kids (or not)) who are comfortable with the inevitable and wanting to plan these things.
It’s the weirdest thing - life just goes on for everyone else and it’s as if a giant earthquake has shattered mine.
There are so many firsts to go through in the first year - his birthday, my birthday, kids birthdays, wedding anniversary, Christmas, the list goes on. I think champagne saw me through each of these. For example, for my birthday I shared some on our back deck with some good friends; on our first wedding anniversary without him I got a spa pamper package and had bubbles over lunch at the Yarra Valley with my sister and brother.
We usually associate champagne (or bubbles) with good times - but there are times when a glass or 2 with a loved one reminds you that the love of your life might be missing but there are still things to continue living for - to toast - waking up every day, the kids milestones, watching them grow up, experiencing a beautiful sunrise or sunset, being in the presence of loved ones, breathing (proper breathing is underrated).
And it’s like I appreciate the little things so much more now… because I have felt the depths of pain, I have witnessed how hard he fought to still be here and how devastated he was to be missing out on these moments.
So here is a bubbly toast to loved ones (the ones who are here and the ones who are not) and to life.
