When my husband of nearly 60 years passed last year I was at a loss. It had been a traumatic transition, in a totally unexpected manner, but he was finally at peace and I was suddenly alone. My days had been taken up with catching the 2pm bus to the nursing home, visiting my husband – sometimes he was awake and aware, sometimes he didn’t know who I was and at other times he was asleep.
I’d stay for an hour or 2 or 3, depending on how he was, and catch the bus in the dark back to the silent apartment we’d recently bought, so I wouldn’t be isolated in our retirement bungalow. The bungalow was at the beach end of a long road, 20 minutes walk for an able bodied person to the bus. A gorgeous bungalow, in a stunning location, but a prison for me had we stayed.
So after the flurry of activity surrounding his funeral I sat alone in my apartment contemplating a lonely future without my soulmate.
Until my daughter popped in that is. Right, she said, you have a choice. You can give into your grief and follow Pa now or you can choose life. As much as I was missing him, I had had months to prepare – although nothing really prepares you – I chose life.
Ok, she said smiling at me, what’s on the list? What list, I asked. Your bucket list, she replied. We’d discussed things I’d wanted to do many times and had tried to get us to take a cruise up the Norwegian Fjords to see the Northern Lights but my husband wouldn’t go because we couldn’t get travel insurance.
She’d always wanted to go to Iceland and bathe in the Blue Lagoon so she decided we’d go to Iceland to see the Northern Lights and bathe in the thermal waters. Our tickets and hotel was book and 2 weeks before Christmas we flew to Reykjavik. There was drama about the blizzard that ‘closed’ Iceland but we made it to the Blue Lagoon and it was gorgeous. It was like being in a hot bath that never goes cold, all steamy hot with a -10ºC air temperature. That night we went out chasing the Northern Lights and boy did we find them. Better than I remembered them when I was a child in Wales standing on our back step.
Our guide for the Northern Lights took us on a trip around the Golden Circle and while I couldn’t get out of the mini bus because of the snow and my mobility issues I had a great view of everything and didn’t feel I missed a thing. We stopped to see the Geyser and had our lunch. My daughter was in raptures. The lamb stew a friend had recommended sent her into a time warp back to her childhood and the stew I used to make them. She wolfed it down. It was delicious.
Too soon our week was over and we flew back to our first Christmas without my husband, her dad.
Not one to leave me to mope she moved onto the next item on my list and our planning started. We were going to France to the bridge over the Milau Viaduct . Our flights to Carcassone were booked.
My son and his soon to be wife were in the process of buy a property in Caunes Minervois and we hoped to stay with them but if not, she’d just take me with her to her friend in Pamplona, Spain and we’d have a jaunt. It lifted my spirits no end, the anticipation of adventure.
As it turned out the property purchase went through and we stayed in Caunes Minervois and my son took us out for the day to see the bridge. It was magnificent, as I knew it would be.
Years before my husband and I had driven through the valley, up the winding roads, while they were visiting and it had always been my ambition to drive over the bridge.
This week I’ve met the Grandson I haven’t seen for 30 years since his mother took him to live in America without his father and cut off all communication. He brought with him his wife and my beautiful Great Grand Daughter, who is to be the flower girl at next weeks’ wedding, when my son, her Grandpa, finally marries his childhood sweetheart with his Son as his Best Man.
My heart is full again but my bucket is empty. A year on, I feel happy again, I still talk to my husband and miss him every day, but the pain is a dull ache now.
The bucket list gave me something to plan for, look forward to and do. Now that it’s empty we’re all looking around for new things to go in it. My daughter says I need something to aim for, to live for, to achieve. Just because he’s gone, doesn’t mean my life is over and I had the choice of to give in to grief or choose life. I choose life. Let’s start filling this bucket!
