View from my house - snowcapped Mt Canigou in the Pyrenees
There have been snowfalls in Oslo recently, and as anyone who knows me will verify, I'm no fan of the white stuff. When I return in a few days I will have to dig out the car at the airport car park, which reminds me that I have no shovel in the boot. That might be a huge problem.
My husband - who always loved skiing, both cross country and downhill, who played bandy when he was a young boy - gradually became tired of the winter months in Norway too. The cold, the ice, the snow, the slippery roads and not least the perpetual darkness. We had agreed that we'd spend more of those dark winter months here in France, where all of a sudden you might wake up to a day with promises of bright sunshine and warmth.
But last Sunday as I was landing at Barcelona Airport I could feel the forceful greeting of Marcel the Storm. The turbulence was indeed the worst I've been in for a while. As I neared the Pyrenees, on the plain after Girona, my little hire car had trouble staying on the road. Winds at up to 150 kilometres per hour really threaten to throw cars off the road, or overturn them. Very often roads are closed when these gusts are going on. Off the motorway and driving the 10 kilometres up to my village I had to dodge fallen branches all the way and a tree trunk here and there. Thinking about it now I could have stopped and gathered free firewood, but then again - not. This stretch of road has earned me two speeding tickets in three months - only a few lines over the limit, mind you - so in fact the fallen stuff blocking the road at intervals was good for me.
Our favourite summer restaurant La Flotille closed, abandoned, deserted
The storm died down gradually, but of course it's winter here too. I had an urge to walk along the beach today - just to feel the elements tear at me. The wind and the rain were powerful enough without lashing out at 150 kph.
And the rain hid my tears. Yes, my tears - that are still coming. I found that my stay in Australia over Christmas and the New Year helped numb me and keep the constant sorrow padded, for the obvious reason that there was such a lot going on all the time. There were people around constantly, it was so busy that I sometimes had to ask for a little bit of "alone"-time to pick myself up. I am after all an elderly woman.
It was as if my brain and my emotions had a time-out while I was in Oz. It was as if they too were on holiday. The numbness was nice in the way that it kept my emotional exhaustion at bay, the one that comes with all the grief and all the crying. I was able to discern some of my old energy again. The weather was warm, the sky was blue, my closest family members were once again gathered all around me.
BUT. There is a big but. Almost every time we gathered - for instance when we sat down for a meal, I found myself counting a chair for my husband, a plate, a glass. I feel his absence so physically that it's as if he's there too. His absence is a presence. This became very apparent during a family trip like the Australia visit because in a way it's completely unthinkable that I should've done something like that without him. He SHOULD have been there.
And he was there. So strong and clear. But my loneliness is excrutiatingly apparent too in these settings.
I know a wise old man, and I met him at a dinner party a few weeks back. A widower, he lost his wife five years ago. He's lovely and entertaining and great at including everyone in conversation - what you would call a perfect gentleman. Across the table from me he associated a piece of the conversation topic with sorrow, looked at me and said "I bet your grief still dominates your life - all you do and all you feel. It will take at least three years. Then you might begin to live a little again, to laugh a little, and your heart will be in it."
Sunset over Mornington Peninsula, Australia - Christmas 2016
And do you know what? This is also one of the reasons I'm here in my house in France - to grieve in peace. My numbness didn't last. I should have known it - it's impossible to force yourself to go numb and devoid of emotions. They will surface eventually.
I pull out a chair for my husband here too.
He should have been here.
