<img class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-3165" src="http://pigyard.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/jane-at-Marys-retirement-150x200.jpg" alt="jane-at-Mary's-retirement" width="150" height="200" />Yesterday would have been Jane's 66th birthday. As expected I started the day with the usual melt down, not straight away but when I was brushing my teeth, no stimulus just an incredible emptiness that washed over me.

Thank goodness Sue and Graham came up to keep me company, they also brought Jane's ashes home. We went out with Nick and Val for dinner where we drank to Jane and wished she was still with us. We talked about ugly vegetables and wasted food because to talk about Jane would have been too difficult for us all. What I learned was that we're all grieving and my "family" are struggling with my loss too.

Today I had lunch with S&amp;G and after waving them off I picked up her ashes at which point I howled like a child and wept uncontrollably. I know it doesn't make sense because they are just a pot of ashes but to me it was Jane, I cradled them in my arms and fell apart. The veil of tears is still with me 8 hours later. Those who have experienced this assure me it is quite normal but it doesn't feel it.

I've been sent the following:

<em>"I wish I could say you get used to people dying. But I never did. I don't want to. It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the circumstances. But I don't want it to "not matter". I don't want it to be something that just passes. My scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had for and with that person. And if the scar is deep, so was the love. So be it.</em>

<em>Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged, and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are only ugly to people who can't see.</em>

<em>As for grief, you'll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you're drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it's some physical thing. Maybe it's a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it's a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.</em>

<em>In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don't even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you'll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what's going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street junction, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything...and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.</em>

<em>Somewhere down the line, and it's different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas.</em>

<em>You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you'll come out.</em>

<em>The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don't really want them to. But you learn that you'll survive them. And other waves will come. And you'll survive them too."</em>

Tomorrow I must plan some activities, keep busy and keep going...