Mac Distraction

After my last blog post I was pretty much knocked out for two days. Monday and Tuesday last week. I think that these were to two worst days that I have had since Kay died. The memory that triggered it seemed to release a flood of grief in me that overwhelmed me for 48 hours. This is the first time that I've had an attack of intense grief that has lasted for more than a few hours and this caught me unawares. On Monday evening, 24 hours into the attack, I thought that the worst had passed and I fully expected to wake up on Tuesday restored back to whatever semblance of equilibrium that I'd previously had. 

But Tuesday turned out to be worse. At some point Marion decided that I needed to be outside - it was a sunny afternoon - and she put me in a garden chair, wrapped up in coats and blankets like an old man. This seemed to help turn the tide. Marion also arranged for me to see the homeopath that evening, who gave me something to improve my state of mind. However it came about, on Wednesday I was fit enough to return to work. But the effect on my agenda of losing two days of work was major and I have been playing catch-up ever since. So this is my first excuse for not having updated the blog in more than a week. 

My second excuse is rather more pathetic, but quite good: I finally gave in to various social and business pressures and bought myself a MacBook Pro last week. I got it on Thursday and since then have been spending my evenings trying to forget that Windows ever existed. I have to say that I think that it's a brilliant piece of equipment, probably the best laptop that I've ever had, though if Sony got their act together they could give the Mac a run for the money. But of course it's the software that makes the Mac so enjoyable to use. Anyway, I could bore you all evening with Mac vs Windows comparisons, which is not really the purpose of this column.

I think that it's now clear that grief is not linear process. I suspect that my way of dealing with it is to bottle it up for a while and then get overwhelmed by the accumulation. Marion seems to be more constant in her dealings with grief, more constantly upset or close to being upset. Marion tends to confront all things Kay, while I tend to avoid them. For example Marion is in and out of Kay's bedroom, while I've not been in there for weeks. Marion say nite-note to both girls every night, while I avoid thinking about the subject. I have no idea which approach is 'best', if there is such a thing, but it wouldn't surprise me if Marion's approach leads to her finding peace with the subject sooner than mine. Marion is confronting Kay's absence while I'm tending towards avoiding it and ultimately I don't think its something that can be avoided. So I suspect that there will be more moments that accumulated grief ends up laying me low.

Again I'd like to think everyone who contributes to this blog for their support. It has yet again been good to know that we're not alone with our fight to survive these most difficult of times.