I wish I could remember the person I used to be a little more clearly… What did it feel like to sleep at night? To wake refreshed? To have not a single ache…? To have energy? I thought after two years I’d have come to terms with what happened… How naive of me. Only someone who has never known grief would think that. Nothing will go back to how it used to be. I just have to get used to how it is now. I have to learn to live with this feeling of utter loneliness. Alone-ness… Of living in a world which feels alien to me. Where I don’t have any sense of belonging. That was then. This is now. That’s all it comes down to… But… But… I can’t help thinking… Who will be there for me at the end? What is the point of a life which ends at death? They say you live on in those who outlive you, but I have no siblings and no children, so what is the point. My parents told me the stories if their youth, of how they met, of when they first married… All those beautifully coloured stories I can still see whirling around in my head… The 1950s clothes, the music, the dancing… Their story dies with me. My story dies with me. What is the point?
I used to love Alexander Pope’s “Ode to Solitude”, especially the last verse… I’ve no idea why I liked it so much. I now find it sad and not a little prophetic… That is how my life will end and I’d better get used to the idea.
Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air,
In his own ground.
Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire,
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.
Blest, who can unconcernedly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away,
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day,
Sound sleep by night; study and ease,
Together mixed; sweet recreation;
And innocence, which most does please,
With meditation.
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.