I’ve heard it said that grief comes in waves. The weekend just gone was difficult as Danelle had brought home Sam’s ashes and what was left of his possessions. Several boxes of stuff – some of it sentimental/memorabilia type stuff, some practical, tools, clothes, physiotherapy instruments and the usual junk that we keep in our bedside table.

We sat down Saturday afternoon to sort – but it just felt very heavy – very much of a reminder of his non-presence any more – of the utter gone-ness of his being and the sheer finality of the whole thing.

Clothes, trinkets and some ashes  in a plastic container… with accompanying death certificate… It’s confronting to see a human body reduced to ashes. It’s unbelievably sad when it’s someone you love this much. I haven’t had too many super -sad days in the last week or two. (Of course then comes the struggle of wondering if you are a heartless bastard who has simply moved on.) I have gone back to work, kept the exercise regime up and managed to balance whatever social commitments we had without much anxiety or pain. I watched the Danelle and the girls really finding it hard over the weekend while I was doing OK. ‘Grief comparing’ – you know it’s dumb but you do it anyway.

I chose this picture to put on my phone as a lock screen. I had the other one below initially but the challenge of looking at this larger than life grin rocked my heart every time I opened it up – so I swapped it out.’

But after a week of the black and white, back view I decided to switch back. I feel like I’d rather look him in the eye and suffer the daily wrench than look at his figure from behind and maybe pretend he hasn’t really gone.

Today I was at the gym and it is amazing how much comes at you in that hour. I was listening to Greg Boyd on a podcast, while gym music played and two different tvs showed two different programs complete with subtitles. Was it any wonder I lost count of my reps! Trying to concentrate on a theology podcast with all the other noise is pretty hard. And then you add to that the ‘background background’ track that plays just reminding you that life has changed for ever.

I have used the image of having a ‘room’ in the back of my mind that opens on one side to a Narnia like place – I guess it’s heaven (however that looks) and on the other side is my consciousness. Some days I intentionally ‘open the door’ and let Sam in – I muse, feel, smile and weep. Other days I leave it shut. Then there are the days he barges in all guns blazing and I am overwhelmed and caught off guard by his presence. I haven’t ever felt like I want to ‘lock’ the door so I imagine that is a good thing.

For some reason it was the gym where a wave of grief broke today – just enough to throw me off balance and drag me under for a brief rinse. A flick thru my photos as I rode the warm down bike was enough to throw a spanner in the works.

I have kept the photos from our identification of him and from when they were returning on the boat. They are heartbreaking to look at – but somehow I feel like I want to see them every now and then to remind myself that he is not gone on a long holiday – instead he is just gone forever. It’s been the hardest part for me to grasp.

People have asked me if I’m angry, but I’m not – just deeply sad to a depth I didn’t realise was possible.. Somehow as my brain ‘does the maths’, I feel like I have no one or nothing to be angry at. I was angry at Sam initially as he had told us of close calls with blackout, but I only have to remember my own teen years to know that I did my fair share of risky stuff and just happened to get away with it.

Yeah I do sometimes wonder ‘why us?’ Why do we somehow get to bear this greatest of losses that a child seems to be? But there is no real answer to that. Those who would see it as all part of God’s plan would suggest that there is a bigger picture that we just can’t see. I guess you have to think that if you truly believe that God would engineer an event like this. I don’t mean that snidely. I just can’t conceive of God in that way.

That said, maybe one day we will find out that those folks were right… But for now that isn’t a theological position I could credibly hold. It sits too heavily at odds with the notion of a good God or even with the idea of genuine free will.

We are now 6 weeks since Sam’s death – long enough for the initial impact to have worn off most people I would imagine. And even for myself I know I am no longer reeling and disoriented. I think I am starting to accept this new reality, but conscious that waves are still breaking over the bow every now and then and either catching us off guard or at times capsizing us.

Danelle and I spoke this afternoon of possibly travelling as a ‘family’ but just the thought seems more like it would currently serve to enforce what’s not here. So the next family holiday may need to be left for a while.

Anyway just some musings 6 weeks in… Oh and you simply cannot watch the news with the same kind of detached perspective any longer. Two brothers killed in Mexico is not just very sad. It rips at your heart as you know the pain of one child dying in a relatively good way – but to have two sons shot in the head while in a foreign country and then have to go there to retrieve bodies and identify them is next level intense. So very sad for that family.