Death comes to us all

How do you say goodbye to someone you havent seen for around 30 years?

Who you loved / adored as a small child but as a young adult, that relationship broke down irretrievably. When it is in no way possible to attend their funeral.

I’m working out ways of dealing with this.

Today I burned some symbolic representations, copies of photos, an old letter and the models I had made for my artwork. They represented my childhood and after all the work I’ve put in, the work I’ve made, this was a cremation, a burning of my past that I can now gladly leave behind. I wrote a letter to the dead person and while the fire burned I read it out to them. Stuff I had wanted to say, imaginary conversations that I wished we could have had. I also included their apologies and the nice things I wished I could have heard from them!  It was cathartic to say out loud words I had longed to hear.

It was in my own garden and thankfully there was also a loud buzzing of builders doing stuff elsewhere so it was very private, the neighbours not accidentally hearing!  I surprised myself with a massive flood of tears and it was hard to keep reading. I was ok by the end and then I bounced the rest of the day.

The last week my predominant sensation has been “this is the first day for the rest of your life”. Every morning I have woken up with it. I still have all the usual mood swings too, they haven’t disappeared but I note them in my journal and move on.

I’m struggling to get used to feelings of happiness, they catch me out and I hear myself singing as I bounce around my day.

I see early childhood photos of myself as a happy little child and I am ready to re-embrace her.

Fire pits can be very useful for symbolic cremations! This is not the first time I’ve said goodbye to things that were difficult using the fire pit.