Sorting out and 2nd visit to a medium.

So here I am in 2013, another year ahead stretches dauntingly before me, another year in which Alison will not have existed. Twenty one months on and I still cannot believe she is not here, all those months without her, yet it still seems like she was only here yesterday. I think of her and I miss her every moment of the day, as crazy as it seems, I still worry about her! She was the absolute centre of my universe, my life revolved around her, with the centre of my universe now missing I'm a lost soul trying to adjust to this new life of no choosing and it is so bloody hard!

Those who knew Alison well, can understand the void that is now left in my life, such was Alison's vibrancy they have a void as well, she certainly left a footprint in many a heart.

January was a tough month to get through mentally, I really did fall back into the deepest depths of grief.

Thankfully come February the deep grief abated.

I decided that the time was right to start sorting out the house and finally go through all Alison's stuff and get it organized and put into one area of the top floor of the house.

I started with clearing out under the bed, always a place where stuff is just rammed under out of sight. I have been wanting to sort out under the bed for a long time hoping to find maybe one of Alison's discarded gel nails.

Every couple of months she used to have her gel nails replaced, the night before having them replaced,she would sit in bed pinging off the old ones.

I felt sure there would be at least one discarded nail under the bed. Such little things that once were totally unimportant, become very important.

So anyway everything was cleared out from under the bed and all the dust hoovered up, no nail found though and I searched really carefully before hoovering. But when that was complete, I thought I would just run the hoover over the large red shaggy rug I have at the foot of the bed and there in the middle of the rug was a small gel nail ! So pleased, obliviously destined to find it, so another little item to add to her memory box.

With the bedroom done, the hardest task was to follow, sorting out Alison's space, at the top of the house, I made a start, but it is still on going. Even though I'm not throwing anything away, sorting out all her stuff and putting it in one corner of the room, is like tidying away her life, it rams it home to me that she is no longer here, that her life does not exist any more and all I see in front of me is history.

Starting this sorting out when I did, was two fold, I had made a booking to see the medium I saw just under a year ago. I wanted to do something current that possibly could be mentioned in the reading, that Alison was aware that I had sorted out the bedroom and had started on her space at the top of the house.

You will have to read what follows, to see if Alison was aware.

So the 2^nd visit to Susan, the medium;

I was more anxious prior to this reading, than the first. With the first I had nothing to lose, my beliefs in afterlife back then were not as strong and absolute as they are now, so for her not to come through on that first visit, was not as paramount, as it was now for her to come through on this second visit.

If she didn't come through this second time, how would it make me feel, would it set me back, would it make me question my belief, I would be constantly asking myself why didn't she come through, had she completely disconnected from the earth plane never to visit again.

So I had a lot to lose this time round!

This time I would tape the reading on my video camera, something I really regret not doing last time. So I arrived and sat down in front of Susan, I had taken my jacket off and laid it beside me on the sofa, I placed the video camera just in front of Susan, the lens just focused on the arm of her chair, as I assumed it rude to video Susan, after all it was the voice recording that I wanted.

Susan closed her eyes for about a minute, I thought it too good to be true for Alison to come through instantly like last time, I thought to myself,it will more likely be some distant relative that I had long forgotten about, who I had no interest in hearing from.

But Alison didn't disappoint, straight away she was there, what followed was an hour of non stop Alison.

I have a lady here, not an elderly woman, a much younger woman, she has shoulder length hair, Susan then went on to describe Alison's personality perfectly. I had no doubt it was Alison, like before I could feel her presence.

The Waterfront in Ipswich was mentioned again as a place that holds many memories, so true, Alison was down there daily. Susan said she was also being shown a road near to the Ipswich town football ground, the road she was being shown is where I live, Susan had no idea where I lived.

She also liked the bustle of places like the Waterfront also markets and places like car boot sales, Alison did.

Susan then asked have you been de-cluttering, sorting stuff out very recently, I said yes, Susan said I'm being told you sorted a lot of stuff out and then put it back again, she is laughing Susan said, you put all that energy to sorting things and it's still there in the same place.

Susan then asked have you done something to the bed, connected to this de-cluttering, as I'm being shown a bed and she was with you when you were sorting out.

So there was my proof that Alison was aware of what I had done!

Susan then went onto describe more of Alison's personality and the things she loved, all of the description absolute accurate. She then said she had a hard few days mentally, leading up to her passing, this is very true, but I need not go into that.

She is saying something about a paint brush, she is showing me a paint brush being picked up, are you painting again Susan asked, then suddenly, are you painting HER! Susan said, then instantly followed with, you 'ARE' going too, said with an authoritative tone.

It is something I have been thinking about, it appears Alison knows that is something that will be done!

Who's Phil, Susan asks, I said a friend who has recently come back into my life after a few years away, he has called in on me a few times for a cuppa. Have you been reminiscing about the past and going down memory lane talking about her with him, I said yes, well she is aware of that , she was there as well.

I'm getting a smell of tobacco, but not ordinary tobacco or cigars, would it be wakky bacy Susan asks, I said yes she occasionally used cannibis. Oh she says she is laughing, just as I got that wiff of smoke.

You have been asking her for healing for her mother she says. Once in a while I do ask for Alison to help her mum who has all but lost the will to live and is suffering with an illness that makes her ache from head to toe.

She has heard you ask and she is doing all she can to give her mum strength and she says thank you for being there for her mum.

She is saying thank you for the Xmas tree, she loved it, she knows it must have been so hard decorating it and so hard for me at Xmas.

Susan asks, have you done something about your glasses, something about having an eye test, she said you have been struggling with your eyes and you must keep the appointment as your eyes are so important, she says just because she is not here doesn't mean I shouldn't look after myself.

She did believe in a lot of things your lady, I would actually say she was open to the spirit world!

I said that she actually didn't believe in afterlife.

Well she does now Susan says.

Do you still have a pair of her shoes? As she is smiling and pointing down to my feet , but I haven't got any shoes on.

I then lifted my foot up, as I was wearing a pair of Alison's trainers!( must point out they are not easily recognisable as female trainers)

Well Susan said laughing, you can't get better than that for proof, what is the likelihood of a male partner wearing his partners shoes !

I'm seeing a Tattoo, Susan said, have you been thinking of having one. I said yes and have been playing around with designs, but I'm undecided.

She says you don't need to get one to remember her, as she is always in your heart, but if you want to you can

Susan then says, she loved flowers and I saw a rose fleetingly, but now I'm seeing a Lily and a possible Tattoo design based around a Lily.

Lilies were Alison's favourite flower and the designs I have been playing with have been based around a Lily!

You may remember the subject of Tattoos was mentioned in my first reading.

Is there a ring somewhere that is important to you both, I said yes an engagement ring, I have it at home.

Well she is wearing it now, even though you have it at home! It means a lot to her and she is so pleased it wasn't wasted, for example incinerated.

Do you cut your own hair Susan asked, or have you a cutting of her hair, she is saying someone cut a piece of my hair! and she is pointing to your jacket.

I then pulled out of my jacket my car keys, which have a a transparent key fob containing a lock of Alison's hair, ah Susan says well she knows you have that with you.

She is saying, that I still have a lot to do in this life and it is not my time, but when it is, the first face I will see is her and that I am still so much part of her life even though she is in spirit.

Susan then says, I can guarantee without doubt that you will be together again one day!

So there are the key points of my reading. I stayed for another half hour chatting about all things to do with afterlife,

I asked Susan about the fact there is no time in afterlife and it is something that is hard to get your head around.

She said it is hard to imagine, but if time existed there, ten years of earth time would be just nano seconds in afterlife.

I also asked about the amount of energy spirit need to exert to make contact, she said for them to come through to her, the energy needed is the equivalent of working hard, non stop for a week. Therefore the energy needed to move objects is far greater and to actually show themselves as an apparition takes even more, hence why it is so rare.

I asked about spirit completely disconnecting from the earth plane, from Susan's experience this never happens, they always stay connected to their loved ones.

So there you go, more proof that life does go on and that are loved ones are with us most of the time.

Empty rooms.

When I first met Alison, I was living in a rented shabby mid terrace house, even though I rented it, I decorated and made as nice as possible

A couple of months after meeting Alison, she moved in, we made it our home, with the view of moving somewhere nicer when we could afford it.

We stayed there together for another year.

We both worked from home, so Alison made a work area in my studio, which was in one of the two rooms downstairs. Such was our love, we were together 24/7 working alongside each other as well -it just worked , as it did until the day she passed.

Then the rental company suddenly decided they wanted to refurbish the house and put it back on the rental market at a higher rent, so we started looking for somewhere new.

We looked at several properties that offered no more than what we were leaving, then we found a bungalow outside of Ipswich, it had everything we wanted, good décor and a lovely country location. At the last minute, days before signing the tenant agreement, the owners took the property of the market.

By this time, we had only a week to vacate the house we were in, we needed to find somewhere quick, any where, even if it meant living somewhere for a couple of months or minimum contract time.

At the last minute we were offered to be shown a new build house, but it was located in the heart of the Ipswich red light district, we decided to give it a look, but certainly had no desire to be in that area of the town.

Being the red light area, we didn't really know what the area was like other than it was 'Red' and did not know of any new build properties there.

Anyway we viewed and just fell in love with the house, it had more space than we ever imagined and it was brand new.

The last night in the terrace stays in my memory, we slept the night on a mattress in what was my studio in the house, we were both so excited to be moving into the new house that next morning.

So we moved in, it was brilliant, everything we wanted, except for the location. Even though we loved the house, the location was a bit of a problem, constant kerb crawlers all night long, street girls plying there trade right outside the house.

But we could put up with it, if it really got too much we could always move again.

Then things changed, after being in the house a couple of years, five street girls were murdered, all had been picked up from the road our house was on. A guy was eventually arrested and sentenced.

Consequently there was a crack down on kerb crawling with zero tolerance, drivers would be named and shamed. CCTV cameras were placed along the road and all cars were monitored for several months.

Prostitution stopped completely and the area lost it's red light label.

The house is three story, with so much space, we had many years together here and we loved it, even though it is rented, it was our 'home'. The landlord became a very close friend and often said to us the house is ours for however long we want to be here.

When Alison died one or two people said, what are going to do with the house, are you going to move and downsize? my answer was a terse no, I'm staying.

All of Alison is wrapped up in this house, her memory lives here with me, don't think I could ever move and the long term plan is to hopefully buy the house. A fresh start some where else, I cannot ever see working, where ever I live, I will still be lonely, so I may as well be lonely in a house I love that is full of memories, even if at times those memories make the tears hard to hold back.

So I'm in a house of empty rooms now, as which ever room I'm in at any point of the day, the other rooms are empty. There is no sound from them, no Alison banging about, no talking to her self, no tapping away on her computer key board, no talking on the phone, there is nothing only silence from them.

Her little study is still as she left it, her office chair stands empty, her computers all switched off, her urn of ashes sits on top of her desk, how could I ever imagine eighteen months ago that she would be in her study inside an urn, so bloody unreal and unfair.

The shower room which she used as a workspace as well, is still as it was left, the shower has never been used since the day she went, her shower cap still hangs on the door, her shampoo and toothpaste still in the shower tray.

Then her main room again as it was left, nothing moved, just a few things added, computer screens with covers on, not been touched since the day she died. Her riding leathers, boots and helmet, crash damaged, sit in one corner of the room, a brutal reminder of what has happened to us both.

The stairs to the top rooms and down to the first floor, still have to odd coffee stain on the stair carpet, spilt from the many cups of coffee taken up to her study, the banisters on the stairs, still have mucky finger prints from when she had been tinkering with her bike, to wipe them clean would seem like wiping the evidence away that she was ever here, silly I know.

The bathroom, which is right next to my studio, every day I used to run a bath for her, she would often have a shower and a bath. I so miss our chats while I was painting and she was in the bath. She loved her baths scalding hot, I could never even put my hand in, she used to get out out red from the heat and lay on the floor, half in the bathroom and half in front of my studio door, to cool down.

The tiles at the back of the bath have the faint shape of her head, as the tiling grout has very slightly discoloured over the years from her head resting against them, just above the tiles on the back wall are her hand/finger marks, where she used to place her hand while getting in. It is so unreal sitting looking at the empty bath and knowing that I will never run a bath for her again.

My studio, long hours spent here, these days far more on the computer than at the painting desk, which is not good. Some days I just don't have the motivation to paint, days can turn into a week and at the end of the week I have nothing to show work wise.

It was never like this, we were early risers, most mornings I would have my paint palette all laid out ready to go at 7 am, these days it's more like midday, if and when I finally kick myself into action.

I need to paint productively again, four paintings a month, not one or two every two months, I want to get back to how I worked before. In time I'm sure I will, but at the moment I struggle because I haven't got the clear mind I once had.

The bedroom, the only room used as such, the top floor is really the master bedroom, my studio would be the third bedroom. It has taken so long to get used to sleeping alone, but I am used to it now, I do sleep well , but you never get used to waking up alone. I have a photograph of Aly on my bedside table and before I go to sleep, I hold the photo and talk to her, I have done this every night since she died and will probably do so for as long as I'm on this earth. Her wardrobe is as she left it, sometimes I open it up, not often though, as seeing all her clothes hanging there just floors me, but I can never part with them. I know some do, but I can't, they are part of her life. I so miss seeing her drying her hair in the bedroom, standing and bent forward, her head upside down, or sitting crossed legged on the floor at the bedside table doing her make up. Also her frequent, afternoon naps, sometimes I would climb in bed with her and have an hour, oh how I miss that.

Downstairs the Kitchen, very faint indentations all over the lino, made by her heels. Some of the cupboards still full with her electronics paraphernalia, one cupboard full of her cake making equipment.

The kitchen was my domain really when it came to food, oh and washing up! Alison very rarely washed up, if she did then the kitchen was left swimming in water lol.

But she was good at cleaning, if and when she cleaned, she did the full monty. She decided to clean the cooker one day, I was upstairs working when she started, I came down after about half an hour to see how she was getting on, I opened the kitchen door, to find the cooker stripped down and in pieces on the kitchen floor, door, glass, panels, rubber seals, everything!

She was so funny the way she went about things, no short measures.

The downstairs closet is untidy, it has become a bit of a dumping ground, her hats and scarves still hanging on hooks, underneath a wicker box full of her shoes, her gym bag sits on top. It still has sand in it, from when she went to the beach a few days before her accident.

For months now I have wanted to get it sorted, I will do it one day!

The living room, so many memories in this room.

When Alison once mentioned bringing her bike into the living room to do some electronic work on it, I thought she was joking. Then she started making something out of MDF board, in the garden, I asked her what she was making, she said a ramp so that she could ride the bike into the living room, you see once she had made her mind up about something, there was no stopping her. Although I didn't agree with the bike coming in the house, for supposedly an hour or two, if it made her happy, so be it. Thing is, sometimes it was in for a day or two and often it would be in for cleaning as well. I would give anything to see that bike back in the house.

I feel the emptiness of all the rooms together in the evenings, sitting watching TV, that's when the loneliness gets me most and now that winter is here, the evenings will get longer. No more cosy evenings chilling out together, watching a movie or whatever.

The house feels empty, it's not alive any more, but I still love the house and Alison is still part of it, I guess her residual energy will always remain.

When I have friends over, the house gets some of it's life back, but that's only for short periods.

What I had here has gone, but I'm forever grateful that I had six years of happiness here with Alison.

Building new memories.

Eighteen months now, since losing Alison, where has all that time gone, I find it unbelievable and surreal that she has not been in my life physically for all those months.

I remember standing outside alone at the reception after her funeral and thinking what is life going to be like many months ahead, I could not imagine it, to be honest I didn't think I could survive the weeks ahead let alone months. At the time I just wanted to follow her at the soonest opportunity, once things had all been sorted, but of course this was just irrational thinking.

So here I am all those months on and well into the second year, which is the year of reality, the reality has hit me big time, this is my life now, she is never coming back, never will I see her again in this physical world.

My mind still struggles to accept this, every morning when I awake, for a split second I still expect to see her beside me, for whilst I sleep, I escape the relentless mental torture of missing her.

Such was my bond and my absolute love for her, the adjustment to her not being here, is going to be long and mentally painful.

But I have to adjust, I have no choice, I know she is with me in spirit, but it's not enough, I so desperately want her back and there is nothing more frustrating than that being impossible.

In my last post I stated that I don't feel her around as much now as I did in the early months, there have been no more signs, no more dreams, no feeling of presence.

I know she will have moved on in spirit, completely crossed over and probably disconnected completely from the earth plane, it brings on a whole new feeling of loss and emptiness.

I will go and see the medium Susan, for one last reading next year, after that I feel I have to release myself from this wanting and longing, for it is never going to bring her back,

I do get desperately lonely and I still have days of complete sadness and all these months on I still cry, the price I pay for true love! and because I work from home, it means much of my time is spent alone with my thoughts of what I had and what I have lost.

So back to adjusting to life with out her ;

In losing her, I lost my zest for life, I lost my confidence, my motivation, I lost everything that was important to me. So now I have to slowly try and get some of those things back. I need to start enjoying life again, it will of course never be the same as when Alison was here, I loved life back then, but I can't and won't let myself become recluse, Alison would hate that.

I have to build new memories and not feel guilty about doing so, I have to keep telling myself that I shouldn't feel guilty about enjoying myself.

Just over a week ago, I had a good friend (Jane) come to stay for a couple of days, we became friends on a widow forum. I met her in London back in the spring (see an earlier post), she lost her husband in an almost identical accident to Alison's, a month earlier, so we have this tragic common ground.

Jane stayed from the Thursday until the Sunday, on the Friday morning I had booked her in to have a reading with Susan the medium. I sat outside in the car while Jane was having the reading, she was in there a full hour, I just hoped her husband John would come through. I had been telling Alison to connect with John and make sure he was there to come through – well you never know.

Anyway John did come through and Susan actually gave his name!

the reading couldn't have been better, I was so pleased for Jane.

Anyway we had two lovely days out, visited a couple of nice eateries, had fab food, the most amazing oysters, scallops, lobster, we certainly ate well.

In the evenings we watched movies and drank plenty of red wine.

It was a fab couple of days, Jane is a very special friend and great company.

Whilst making coffee in the kitchen, it was strange hearing someone upstairs again, I was caught off guard (not quite the right term) when on Saturday morning Jane switched on a her hair dryer, for a few seconds I thought it was Alison, never thought I would hear a hair dryer in the bedroom again! I just had to go outside quickly.

So I'm building these new memories, I'm learning how to enjoy without feeling guilty, Alison would want that for sure.

But it is still bloody hard!!

Starting to post again.

You may have noticed I have deleted the post called 'My Last Post' at the time of writing it, I thought it was the right thing to do, I was wrong, I need this blog to write down my emotions rather than bottle them up. Within a couple of days of posting it, I realised my mistake, it was like cutting my right arm off.

I think also I was fretting that I had not posted for a while as I had nothing new to tell, so the fretting was becoming a burden.

But it is stupid thinking like that, as though I had written a best seller and needed to come up with another best seller.

You know and I know, that's not what this blog is about, as I have just said, to not write down my emotions, means they will just build up inside me, not good!

So I will carry on writing and posting as and when I need to.

So here are a few notes on my feelings, to get the ball rolling again.

I'm now in my sixteenth month without Alison and miss her so much more intensely now, than early on in my grief journey. People say to me 'You have the memories to cherish', yes I do but they tear me apart at times, early on I could watch her videos and look at her pictures, now I can't, I want to hear her voice, I can do, by watching the videos, but I know what the result will be.

I said in the deleted post, the landscape around me is the same, except the one person who made my landscape what it was is no longer in it, therefore I now live in a constant surreal landscape. Can it ever get better, I don't know, will I ever wake up in the morning and say 'brilliant another day' like I used to, instead of now saying 'here we go again, another day to get through'.

That last quote probably makes me sound a right misery, I'm not really, I'm certainly not as happy as I once was, how can I be, but I don't mope around in self pity. To the outside world I'm getting along just fine, in truth I'm really just coping, no one can see the constant mental pain I feel, wanting Alison back but knowing I can't, going up to her study and seeing the urn that contains all that's left of her, being surrounded by all her stuff, all her laptops, numerous computer screens and electronic programming equipment, all shut down and now unused, time stood still, now just memories of the past.

Her clothes still in the airing cupboard, in her wardrobe, all part of her, I can't let go of them! Eventually I will sort her space at the top of the house, pack away all her equipment, when I don't know, I want to sort it, but I have to wait for a strong frame of mind or a spur of the moment decision.

I have said before that Alison was such a massive part of my life, I adored her , I still do and always will, she is still a massive part of my life even in death.

At almost sixteen months I still take things day by day, I still have the occasional meltdowns and panic attacks, they are intense but don't last as long, the walls of the grief pit are not as steep as they once were, if I fall in it doesn't take so long to climb out. Each morning I wake up, I don't know how I'm going to be until a couple of hours into the day, for when I sleep it is escape from the constant missing her,

Then there are the occasional tears, a little more frequent, just quiet moments of memories can bring them on, usually in the evenings, the time of the day I feel more alone.

My mind still cannot get used to her not being here, not existing physically any more, that is just about the hardest thing to accept, just doesn't seem real or possible. I still light candles in front of her photos every evening, still have fresh flowers in the house, she would think it mad that I still do this, I talk to her during the day and before I go to sleep, I hope she hears me, although I don't feel her presence as much now, more on that in my next post.

Shine on!

Following my reading back in March, I have heard so many good things about Susan, the medium I went to see and of others that have had amazing readings from her. In my posting about my reading, I stated that Susan connects with the thought of the spirit, I was wrong in that statement, I have since learnt that the spirits actually talk to her and in some cases she can see them.

During the reading it did feel like Alison was sitting next to her telling her things to say, so it seems she was, well maybe not sitting., maybe floating who knows. Since then I have absolute no doubt that Alison lives on and therefore there is an after life.

The pain of missing Alison, constantly courses through my veins, now and again I just cry and cry. In the last week or so I have had some really down days, the Jubilee weekend didn't help. One evening I had one of these crying moments and after pulling myself together, I picked up Alison's small Nikon camera that was on the table, I said to her out loud ' C'mon Aly lets see if your here' I then took random pics around the living room, I was hoping to capture her spirit orb.

I didn't check the images until a few days later, to my surprise one of the photos had an orb, now to be honest as much as I was surprised, logical reasoning seeps in. I thought maybe it could be a dust particle caught by the flash, this is the common explanation for them. That said, Alison's camera has taken many hundreds of photos, never has an orb appeared and if dust was the cause, then many images if not all would capture orbs. So I choose to believe that the orb is spirit energy and that Alison was there sitting on the arm of the sofa, which she did many times.

I decided when I felt the time was right I would take some more photos.

On Friday 8^th June, I was invited too an evening event, by one of Alison's close friends. It was good, but when some of Alison's other friends turned up, it just hit me that it shouldn't be me here, but Alison, I felt so sad that she was missing out. I couldn't stay, made my excuses and left. I got home and just burst into tears, I was in tears off and on for the next few hours, really crying from the heart, I just miss her so much and crying releases the tension that bottles up as you try to function day by day.

After a while I calmed down, her camera was on the arm of the sofa, I picked it up and said to Alison ' please show me your here with me' I then took about twenty random snaps around the room.

Finished, I then went upstairs and uploaded the images on to the computer. What I found on two of the images just blew me away, the bright blue orb is stunning, the best I have seen. In view perspective, it is actually over the sofa where I now sit and where Alison used to sit. The second image below shows the sofa from the opposite side of the room, the white mist is certainly not fallout from the flash, as I took several in sequence, as I did with the image of the orb and nothing appears on the other images.

It's not a case of wanting to believe these are Alison, they are Alison without doubt. 

She shines on!

Finding yourself.

Over the months I have formed a strong friendship with two fellow widows, Deena lost her husband to a heart attack eighteen months ago, Jane lost her husband in a motorcycle accident a month before I lost Alison, the accident was a carbon copy of Alison's.

Each of us have supported each other by email and on the phone through out the months, then last week the opportunity arose for the three of us to meet up in London.

I have traveled up to London hundreds of times, but this would be the first trip to London since losing Alison, I was anxious to say the least, I knew the train journey itself would bring back memories, let alone being in London,I know it was the same for Jane and Deena.

Jane to be honest is an inspiration to me when it comes to traveling, having already been abroad twice on her own, and here she was spending a week in London on her own. Knowing that she is hurting just as much as me and Deena, is testament to her amazing courage and strength, her hubby John would be so proud of her. As would Deena's hubby Ted, for all she has achieved in the last eighteen months and is still achieving day by day.

So we each meet for the first time, as friends not strangers, due to all the on line correspondence and weekly phone calls over the past months. Each of us having had to pay a massive price for our friendship, it makes the friendship extremely valuable and I know we will be close friends for life. We walked, we saw the sights,, we had coffee, we had lunch, we did lot's of talking, importantly we had fun. Without choice, each of us are trying to find the person we now are, the new person we have become in this long journey of grief. The loss of your partner changes you, who you were before has gone, it's not just the loss of your partner that you have to come to terms with, it is the change in yourself and the world around you. At first the world around you is not inviting , you don't want to be here, but you know you must. Gradually you see things differently, but it takes time, you need to find the reason you want to live again, as tough as it is.

Now coming up to a year and one month for me and it is still early days, I do now have more good days than bad, some of my motivation is slowly coming back, but I know I still have some tough times ahead. I still at some point have to go through all Alison's things, the top floor of the house where she did all her work, is still just as she left it. There is no pressure for me to sort it, but I feel I need to do it sooner than rather than later. It will be hard, it will bring me to the floor no doubt, but it will be good to get things organized. Saying that I was looking for a pair of shorts today, which meant searching through the airing cupboard, I just had to stop when I started pulling out Alison's tops and undies, I'm surrounded by her things in the house, but when you pull things out you haven't seen for a year it suddenly hit's you , I still haven't found my shorts!.

The first year.

So here I am, just over one year after my world came crashing down around me, it has been by far the hardest time of my entire life mentally and physically

So Alison has not been physically part of my life for now over a year, what we had as a physical couple here on earth has gone forever, that is by far the hardest thing to accept, everything is lost our past together and our future together, yes I have the memories, but the memories give me the constant mental pain of wanting her back, those memories will do that for a long time to come, probably for ever, testament to what she meant to me.

At the start of this journey of grief, I could not imagine being this far down the line, I couldn't and didn't want to think that far ahead it scared me. But here I am, after a year of the most emotional roller-coaster state of mind I could ever imagine. I never thought it possible I could produce so many tears, only a hand full of days in the last year have I not cried and I still do!

The last year has just been a blur of disbelief, it still feels like I lost her just a week ago or that she was just here yesterday.

The first year anniversary was on Saturday 28 April, since which, I have slipped into a new phase of grief, I sort of expected it, I was more worried about how I would be after the anniversary than the day itself. The first year has in a way been governed by a set of challenges to get through, the funeral, the ashes, the six month point, Xmas, new year, Alison's birthday, then the anniversary of her passing. Now into this second year it's for real ! no more first challenges, just the challenge of my life ahead with out her, it is daunting, it is a new pain!

It really feels like the last year has been just a bad dream and suddenly I have woken up to find it's not a dream, this is it now, it's for real.

Adapting to life without her is so hard, it is the hardest thing I have ever had to face . Just the fact that I have lost her is bad enough, but I have to except that I have also lost the person I was, I now have to find the new me, build a new me, in this I have no choice, the life I had with Alison has now gone, the completeness and happiness lost for ever. I doubt I will ever again feel so complete as I did with her, I definitely will never be so happy. That's not to say I will be forever miserable, just not happy in the same way I was. Alison was so unique in so many ways, not one person on this planet can give me what she gave me.

My mind has to heal from the trauma it has received, I know from speaking to others that this could take years, it is a gradual process, the dips in this roller-coaster ride will I hope get shallower and further apart, time will tell.

For those who have read about my visit to the medium and the amazing reading I had, will know my belief that there is an afterlife. I needed answers after losing Alison, so I read everything I could on the subject, I watched videos, I had many signs but needed to rule out coincidence. Over the months up to the first year anniversary, all the signs followed the exact pattern I had read about time and time again. There were the strange things that happened a few days and a week or so after her passing. Then feathers started appearing in specific places at specific times. I have seven feathers, the last one found in the house at the bottom of the stairs one morning.

I talk to Alison off and on during the day and always before I go to sleep, on finding the feathers, I have said to her more than once if I find one in the house I will believe they are signs from you!

It is understood that soon after passing the spirit stays earthbound for a while and is helped by spirit guides to leave signs to say that they are ok and are with you.

Since that last feather appeared, I have found no more, I guess she got her message across.

There hasn't been any signs since that last feather, I had kept telling her that I would visit a medium, maybe she was waiting for that day and now that she was able connect, she has now crossed over properly and moved on in spirit.

I'm hoping that even though she has probably crossed over, she can still visit me in my dreams and should I ever have another reading come through again.

I have no clue what lies ahead for me, time will drag me forwards, I know that I should be making the best of my life, I know that's what Alison would want, but it is going to take time, I can still only do things day by day, I have no future plans.

A brief summary

On the day of the celebration of her life, at the village hall reception, I stood quietly outside on my own in the warm sunshine with just my thoughts.

Ahead of me stretched my future without Alison, she was at that point in time not a physical person any more, never ever will I see her again, all I had now were memories.

How was I going to continue life without her, how would I get through the next few months let alone the year, what would it be like in ten years time or longer without her, how can I live a life without her beside me. It was unreal, just a bad dream I just needed to wake from, but this was real, not a dream, for eight amazing years she was my life, my future, now she was gone, cruelly taken away from me, she had so much more living to do, it should have been me gone not her. At the celebration after everyone had left the chapel, I stood alone with my hands on her casket saying my last goodbye to her, it was so final, so impossible that her beauty, her charisma, her sheer presence was no longer.

So here I am ,coming up to eleven months without her and it is still unreal, it still feels such a short time that I was saying my that last goodbye and makes me realise I have a long way to go in this journey called grief.

Even now I have moments when I expect her to walk through the door or hear her tapping away on the computer keyboard upstairs. I walk into rooms and expect her to be there, but she's not and I stand looking at the empty space where she should be.

The emptiness and loneliness is what I feel most, it will always be with me. Alison filled my life, she was my structure, my rock, my inspiration, she was my future.

I have lost all that and now I have to somehow adjust to life alone, not easy, my future is so different and I don't like it.

But then I have no choice whether I like it or not, this is how it is now, I have to somehow build around the grief and gradually get some sort of life to enjoy, how do you do that, when it is impossible to better the life you had or even equal it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not continuously sitting around feeling miserable and sorry for myself , I get on with things and enjoy moments, even enjoy some days. I have a good network of friends for support in the real world and online, I just take things day by day, but every waking minute I miss her, the mental pain I feel of her not being here, not existing, really cannot be described.

I still struggle with mornings, when Alison was here I was always up early, now on average it is 10am that I get up, that said I seldom go to bed until 2am, sometimes 3am. I stay up late to make sure that as soon as I hit the pillow I'm asleep. There really is nothing to get up early for any more, I so miss opening my eyes and seeing Alison and then having the most special cuddle of the day, where we would just doze together with our bodies entwined. Now every morning I wake to just a photo of Aly beside my bed and another day with out her.

 

The visit to the medium has helped in knowing that she is with me sometimes, it is a bit of a double edged sword though, she came through so easily and specific on so many things that were conveyed to me, I want more! I talk to her and tell her to do things, just for that extra bit of proof, but she doesn't do things I ask. But then I don't know the workings on the other side of the veil, maybe there are rules on how much contact can be made and how contact is made, maybe the energy needed to move things to show they are around,is something that is hard to do and has to be learnt, then of course time doesn't exist, a second, a minute in afterlife could be two months or more here on earth.

Maybe Aly was waiting in the earth plane to make contact to let me know she was happy and now that she has done that, she could now move on in her journey and cross over properly on the other side, maybe now contact/signs will be few and far between, maybe none.

I did face a risk with a reading, what if Alison didn't come through, where would that then leave my belief, what if she came through and was not happy, that would devastate me further, but that said you never read or hear of people being unhappy in afterlife, sometimes a few visits are needed for them to come through. It was a risk and something I really did not realize until I was sitting in the car waiting for my appointment time, but I had to know one way or the other. I need not have been apprehensive, having since learnt that Susan is highly regarded and even Ipswich Police Force use her gift in serious investigations.

Also my worries in Susan being local and that she could have found information on me or Alison on the internet, have been eliminated, Susan does not own or use a computer or even a mobile phone, besides what came through was so specific and had not been published online. Susan explained that she connects with the thought of the spirit and that was the overwhelming feeling, that she was tapped into Alison.

So in just a few weeks time it will be the anniversary of her passing, before that her birthday, two tough days to get through and on the 29^th April there will be a memorial motorcycle ride for Alison. This time last year when she was here and everything was happy and normal, I could never of imagined that I would be sitting here writing this.

The fact that I am still writing, at nearly eleven months is testament to how much she meant to me and means to me to this day. I am aware that as time progresses there really is not much more I can write without repeating myself. I will continue to write until the anniversary, I will write about the memorial bike ride. Beyond that I don't know, the blog will of course always remain online, I know that it has helped others who are going through the same journey and it will help those who have yet to feel grief understand.

Visit to a medium.

With an open mind I set off to have a reading by a medium named Susan, she was recommended to me by a neighbour who had a very positive reading from her a year or so back. I didn't know what to expect having never had a reading before, but what followed was way beyond my wildest expectations.

As Susan was very local to me, just a ten minute drive away, I was a little sceptical in that maybe she could have done an internet search on my name, although I had only given her my first name, the plan when I first phoned her for an appointment was to give a false name, but when she asked my name I just automatically said Colin.

On arrival I was greeted at the door with a really warm welcome by Susan,

she showed me through to her lounge and I sat in a chair opposite her, she asked if I would like the reading taped, but with nothing to play a tape on I declined, I figured that if anything came through it would just be a few broken sentences or single words, that I could jot down on the note pad I had with me and work out the significance later, how wrong was I ! I now wish I had requested the tape as what followed was not just a few words and statements that you see on psychic television shows, but a full on half hour of being told things that only I could know and they came through rapidly without much pause. I should have known if Alison was to come through it would be full on non stop. Not only did specific things come through, but also Alison's unique personality.

Before she started the reading, she handed me a printed card saying that, as a medium she did not foretell the future or the past and that she could not guarantee anyone in particular coming through from spirit. With that accepted the session began. She then told me to just answer yes or no to anything that might come through or clarify something if needed. She knew nothing of me or of who I had lost. What may come through would be specific words and phrases and that she connects with the spirits thought., I then have to fill in the gaps.

I know from reading about messages that a spirit may be thinking/speaking in long sentences, but this is picked up by the medium broken up, a bit like a bad reception on a radio. Throughout the reading Susan is unaware of Alison's name, Alison may well have given her name, but it wasn't picked up by Susan.

Susan closed her eyes for about a minute, opened them and said, I have a lady here, she has beautiful sparkling eyes and very attractive, she is a very free spirited person,very happy around people and knows what she wants and goes for it. She died very quickly, she could not breath, it was very quick and no pain. She now knows it was her time to go and she was surrounded by past family who were there to guide her to where she is now. She is so sorry it was so quick and wishes now that we could have had that last hug. ( Before she went out on her bike for that last time, I had asked her for a cuddle/hug, had we had that hug, she would still be here).

She did not realize how much she meant to me and how much I loved her, also did not realize how much her friends loved her. She focused more on giving love than receiving it. She knows this now, but there is nothing she can do to change that, she was overwhelmed at how many people came to her funeral, but she is happy where she is and at peace.

Susan then said there was a man with her, Susan said 'father' and that he never got to say he loved me and that he was very proud of me. I immediately thought it must be my father who died many years ago, but once home and thinking about it, my father would not need to say those words and wouldn't say them, but I knew a man who would!, it was Alison's father who died three years before her.

Alison then took over again, the next word to come through was 'Handbag' Susan said she is making a big point as to how special this handbag was and is saying give my love to mum. This handbag was a Gucci handbag and Alison mum had bought it for her, Alison treasured it, it was the only one she used day in day out, she even photographed it, she was so proud of it. Susan asked me if 'handbag' meant anything to me, I said yes, it still has all her things in it. Susan said, yes Alison knows that and knows that you haven't moved any of her things, but it is ok to move things when I feel the time is right. She is now saying Waterfront in Ipswich and coffee shop, she says she went there to relax. Everyday Alison would go down to the re-developed docks in Ipswich to a coffee shop called coffee link, she would often meet friends there or just chill on her own. Then the words University and Vegetarian came through along with a name 'Diana'. Alison's friend who she would often meet at coffeelink, was Petra, she is studying at the University on the waterfront and is vegetarian, Petra's sister is Diana. Eight names came out during the reading all were 'close' connections to me and Alison !

Many of specific things came through that only I know and that I have had no need to make public on my blog or on Alison's tribute website or Face book, so could not have been looked up, besides it did not appear that Susan even had a computer. In conversation before the reading she said I could record the reading on my mobile phone, I said I don't have a mobile, she said me neither. Besides all she knew of me was my first name.

My two boys from my first marriage were mentioned, Alison was close to both, more so to my eldest, who she was teaching how to build computers. Susan at this point said that Alison was very intelligent and computer literate, she is saying programming !, that's what Alison did for a living. She is now saying she could read music, but didn't need to use it when playing the piano as she learnt new music by ear. She says she loved dancing and please play my dance music now and again and she is saying bare feet, she always had bare feet, around the house and in the garden Alison was always barefooted. She is saying video, I said yes we watched videos together, Susan said, 'she is being specific about one video, a pause, then, she says 'Ghost' Alison had bought a copy of this dvd a few months earlier, we never got to watch it together, we had both seen it before, but it is still in it's cellophane wrapper amongst all the other dvd's.

She is now saying 'a painting' Susan asked me if she painted, I said no, it was me who was the artist, she is saying canvass, I said I have used canvass to paint on in the past, but all my paintings are on panel boards. Susan said she is being very specific on canvass, with that the next word to come through, was living room. It then clicked with me, in the living room above our glass table is a large painting I painted for Alison, it is a copy of a painting by Jack Vettriano called the 'The Singing Butler' it is on canvass!

Susan said she teases me and moves it sometimes, as she knows I don't like pictures crooked, she moves other things but only slightly, so I probably don't notice. I was then told that Alison knows I have a lot of unfinished paintings that I must get completed and that I had recently been asked to do another exhibition, she said I must do it and she will help motivate me.

She mentions a ring, I said yes I know which ring she means, well she helped you find it. After Alison's passing I could not find her diamond engagement ring, I knew she only wore it occasionally as the clasps holding the diamond were a little weak, also she could not wear it with her riding gloves. I turned the house upside down looking for that ring, just could not find where she had put it. Then one day I looked at a miniature jug tucked up in the corner of the living room book case and immediately knew the ring was in the jug and sure enough there it was.

She says 'smelly candle'- every evening since Alison was taken I light a fragrant candle in front of her photo on the bookcase, so she knows I do that. Alison then said, I visited you in a dream, you will know the one ! I will visit you again this way sometime. She then indicated that she is always with me, always will be and will help guide me through my life as it is now. If I move on she will move on with me, Oh and there is no need to get a tattoo to remember me by, I have always thought of getting a remembrance tattoo.

She indicates television, Susan asked if I watched a lot of television, I said yes, more than I used too, she is doing this with her hands, Susan then held out both hands and moved her fingers as if using a game controller, Ah yes

I do online gaming every night, Susan says yes she watches you. Susan then said you have recently had problems with your computer, Alison knows it is all sorted now. Last month I had a friend come to check out the server upstairs and check if it was ok to turn off one of the computers connected to it.

She is saying the word Honey, Susan asked me if we liked honey or does the word have significance, I said yes, she called me honey, ok that's what she means by it then, Susan then said Alison has just kissed you on the cheek. Alison knows you talk to her, keep doing so, she does hear you and thank you for talking to me every night before you go to sleep and kissing my photo. I have a photo on the bedside table and always before I go to sleep I talk to her and then kiss the photo before I turn the light off .

So there you have it, far more than I ever expected, but then knowing Alison, if she was going to do something it had to be big! Susan said after the reading finished that Alison knew I was having the reading today. Apart from all the amazing things that came through, was that Alison's personality came through as well.

Died doing what she loved.

When Alison first mentioned getting a bike, I thought it was just one of her ideas that would maybe blow over. She was a bit of an adrenaline junkie at times, she loved anything exciting and dangerous, she had a bucket list of things she wanted to do. Learning to sky dive was one, not just parachuting, but free fall sky diving, once she had learnt that, she had plans to do base jumping (jumping of buildings). Bungy jumping was another and she would have chosen the highest. I remember her asking me once if there was an Olympic 10m dive board in this country, I can see her now above the water 10 meters up and she would give no hesitation in jumping.

So the bike was mentioned and to be honest it filled me with fear, I knew how dangerous riding was and how vulnerable riders are on the roads today. But once Alison had made up her mind about something, it was going to happen! She didn't have a full bike license, so she booked a whole lot of lessons and within a few weeks passed her bike test first time. Unknown to me, she had already bought her bike prior to the test, the first I knew about it was when she asked me to go with her to the Honda dealers to look at the bike she wanted, there it was with her name on the ticket!

Alison was always one for achieving, if there were qualifications to be had she would want them, so she joined courses on advance riding, one with the local motorcycle training school and one with the police, she passed both first time. She was brilliant in everything she did and anything she did had to be perfect, including the riding, but it worried me, her bike was a powerful machine, it was basically a race bike for the road.

I worried every time she went out on the bike, but the fact that she had completed all the advance training, gave me assurance that she could safely handle any situation that may face her while riding and over the months, she clocked up a lot of road miles.

One Saturday afternoon she came down stairs from her study and said 'right, I'm riding to London tonight, for a leaving party of a friend, who was moving abroad' now that did worry me! I tried my hardest to stop her going, but there was no stopping Alison once she had made up her mind to do something. She didn't know the route into central London, so she taped a sat nav to her petrol tank and set off at about 7pm in the dark. God! Did I worry that night. She got to the east end of London and then the sat nav worked loose and fell off and then got run over by another vehicle, but she eventually found the pub where the leaving party was. There was no pub car park and she didn't want to park the bike out of her sight, so Alison being Alison persuaded a group of guys to lift her bike down steps into the beer garden. I think her and the bike where center of attention from then on and she would have loved that!

With no sat nav, she then had to find her way out of central London, it took her almost two hours to find the route out, she arrived home at gone 4am absolutely frozen, but on such a high, the highlight of her ride was getting lost , you see she found things like that exciting, a challenge! As was the decision to go in the first place.

Having the bike made her so happy, at times I think she loved it more than me, she adored it and would spend hours cleaning it after rides. Within a month or so of having it, she had the bike apart, everything at some point was taken off the bike, apart from the engine. She had to know how things worked, how things fitted together.

She decided she wanted different colour lighting on the dashboard, so that was dismantled down to the circuit board and modified, she was so bloody clever! 

The bike was often in the lounge, as much as I used to moan, an afternoon or evening I could put up with but a week! It made her happy so if she was happy I was happy, what I would give to see that bike in the lounge now.

She was so looking forward to the summer of 2011 and doing lot's of riding, she was also planning a track day, something she really wanted to do. Having good weather in late March and April last year, meant she got a few good rides in before her accident.

I have said before I always feared that knock on the door, at worst being told of a crash with injuries, maybe the bike written off, Alison with a broken leg or arm. You can never prepare yourself for worse than that, the first words from a police officer being ''I'm sorry''

Yes if she had not got the bike she would still be here, then again a few minutes earlier or later, of her going out that Thursday evening, she would still be here, life is for living and getting the most out of it, Alison did that, she lived for now and the bike made her feel alive, she loved the power, the speed, the sound, she adored it.

Tragically something she loved ended her life, I know that she would not have wished to die any other way, she died doing what she loved.

Motivation

Now into the tenth month of grief, some seem to think I should be over the grief now and to be honest, if I didn't know what I know now, I would probably think the same of some one who had lost their wife or husband nearly ten months ago. So I don't expect everyone to understand, how can they, I wouldn't understand, had it not happened to me. A few weeks ago two of Alison's young friends popped in for coffee, they are in their early twenties, they have a young open mindedness about loss. We sat chatting and one said in so many words, that I should let go of Alison now and move on, life is for living, look upon your time with Alison as something you have had, as part of life and just take positive things from your time together. Then my face book page was mentioned, in that having it as a shrine to Alison is not doing me any good !

This upset me, more so the mention of my FB page, the thing is, these are young friends who have never had a relationship and certainly never fell in love with anyone yet, how can they possibly know what losing Alison has meant to me. I know they meant well and were only thinking of me in saying those things.

I promised Alison to keep her memory alive, that's what she wanted and I want her to be remembered, at least I have done that.

I have to live with the fact that Alison is now not a physical part of my life any more and I am really still struggling with that fact. In the early months I had to look at photos or video to remind me of her doing certain things, in those early months my memory shut down, probably to protect and help me get through the first stages of grief.

Now I have clarity of mind, I can picture her clearly doing all the things she used to do, as if she was here only yesterday. I still cannot comprehend she is not a physical person any more, my mind tells me she still is, I think of her in afterlife, that she is the same physical person, but she isn't, she only exists as energy, as spirit, my mind at some point has to fully accept she is not physical any more, she has vanished from this earth and there is nothing I can do about it.

She is never out of my thoughts, each day is still a challenge to get through without tears at some point, I miss her so dam much, just thinking back on memories triggers the tears and it's not just the memories and the missing her, knowing that she is not here or ever going to be again, is a bad dream I'm never going to wake up from, it is physical separation at it's worst.

I don't want to feel like this! And as I have said many times before, Alison would hate me being like this, I would like to feel at peace and have acceptance of what has happened, it is just going to take a long time to reach that place. After all this time I still haven't got used to being alone, doubt I ever will, ten months, just seems like one month really, doing things alone, not able to share sucks big time. Having no one to bounce ideas off , no one to share opinions with, no one to ask my opinion, no one to chat nonsense too, basically no one to share my life with! I love our house, all the memories are here, but there is no life in the house any more, it was always buzzing with activity, Alison coming and going, friends coming and going, now nothing, just me.

Then there's the 'moments' when suddenly the reality that she is no longer here is magnified and it hits you deep inside. How can she not be here, I can still see her vividly going out the garden gate for the last time in her life, I watched her go not knowing that it would be the last time I ever saw her alive and she went not knowing that she would be lying dead shortly after. As I have said before, we both died that day, only I am left to go on with my life, while feeling dead inside. Grief has consumed me, no one sees it though, on the outside and in company I smile, I laugh, I'm normal, but inside is where the pain is and no one can see it or detect it, they never see me collapsed on my knees sobbing. The hard truth is that I know I have to get over the grief, sooner rather than later. I have to rebuild my life out of what is left, I cant change what has happened, the grief will not get smaller, I have to rebuild my life around it.

Which means I have to throw myself into work, to start producing paintings like I did before she was taken. Two weeks before she died I had confirmed a solo exhibition in Edinburgh, it would have been my fifth solo exhibition there. Obviously I had to cancel and since then my motivation to paint has been very low. I have had commissions and have slowly worked on these over the months, but the motivation and drive to produce paintings for various galleries, which have been asking for work, has not been there.

By nature, painting is a solitary profession, but not so solitary when you have a partner, Alison would often come in the studio and look over my shoulder at what I was working on, just a little thing like that I miss so much, then of course Alison was the first to see any finished painting.

So I have to now to do it alone, just like everything else! I'm hoping that once I get into painting again productively, it will give me focus and a sense of achievement again, I have to find that motivation! for Alison and myself.