I had a lovely day yesterday celebrating my birthday but was suddenly hit by a huge wave of grief in the afternoon when we had been sitting in the pub.
We had been eating some cheesy garlic bread and I thought about my dad's joy in eating this in the last year or two of his life. My mum never allowed him to eat anything strongly smelling of garlic because she said it made her feel ill. So when she had to go into a care home he was able to try a lot of different foods and he couldn't get enough of cheesy garlic bread! Seeing his joy eating it was sublime.
I was also thinking about my 40th birthday, five years ago, where we went to a restaurant called Dans Le Noir, which is totally in the dark, you can't see anything, you don't know what you're eating or drinking and you can't even see your hands. Blind waiters guide you to your bench seats. I remembered describing the experience to my dad who was in hospital again at this point - about a month before he died- and him saying "oh I am not sure I would have liked that at all".
I don't often burst into tears in a public place these days (I did when he first died) but I just sat in the car for a couple of minutes until my emotions subsided. I'm remembering 5 years ago but it was as clear as yesterday.
I guess I'm posting it because I suspect other people have similar surges of grief, and I hope that you can take some comfort in not feeling you're the only one who still gets them.
We had been eating some cheesy garlic bread and I thought about my dad's joy in eating this in the last year or two of his life. My mum never allowed him to eat anything strongly smelling of garlic because she said it made her feel ill. So when she had to go into a care home he was able to try a lot of different foods and he couldn't get enough of cheesy garlic bread! Seeing his joy eating it was sublime.
I was also thinking about my 40th birthday, five years ago, where we went to a restaurant called Dans Le Noir, which is totally in the dark, you can't see anything, you don't know what you're eating or drinking and you can't even see your hands. Blind waiters guide you to your bench seats. I remembered describing the experience to my dad who was in hospital again at this point - about a month before he died- and him saying "oh I am not sure I would have liked that at all".
I don't often burst into tears in a public place these days (I did when he first died) but I just sat in the car for a couple of minutes until my emotions subsided. I'm remembering 5 years ago but it was as clear as yesterday.
I guess I'm posting it because I suspect other people have similar surges of grief, and I hope that you can take some comfort in not feeling you're the only one who still gets them.