November 12 8:26pm

Slainté

Today was for laughter. Tears too….sharing times with friends reminiscing; making inappropriate jokes about Fraser’ in his absence (he started it); crying together; sharing stories and…I guess we’re pretending he’s just out of the room where we can mock him and wait for his retort. We can all hear them in our heads…memories of past retorts.

I am very aware of our attachment  to the physical. Maybe he is just, ‘out of the room’? Maybe he’s taking a bit longer in the toilet (men🙄lol)…we actually live our days making memories for ourselves and others while we live in the present.

As I peruse the catalogue for urns…or search the web for ‘memorial diamonds’ (I think Fraser would make a huge Diamond. Lol) I am reminded about our attachment to the physical. Aside from a diamond (or tree or whatever other cool ‘memorial’ thing you can find) an urn seems daunting(?). Is it something to sit on my mantle where I have to have a constant reminder of what (or whom) that urn is supposed to represent? A little vase that now holds the body that was once Fraser? Seems morbid at the moment. Sad even. And there is already enough to be sad about. Is it not enough to simply have memories?

Fraser and I wanted to buy a Mercedes’s van. A 4x4 (that was his wish); something we could put our bikes and golf clubs on and just go…for months if we wanted. Maybe we could live in it and travel around. What we recognized, and were starting to work towards was ‘usefulness’. We have a lot of ‘things’ in our home. We were starting to ‘edit’. But really, if we were to make each other the most important thing (so much so that we could stand living in a van together for however long) what did any other ‘thing’ provide us? We have art; books; thingy’s on the mantle…but, at the end of the day, none of it could come in our van….space is very limited to what’s important and useful.

And, NOT that an urn of ashes isn’t important. But useful? It is simply (or maybe not simply at all) an attachment that now my children will have to deal with when I pass (it’s apparently a reality!) and they will already have their own set of ashes (I think…we haven’t had that discussion yet). Do they have to care the same about my 'things' when they will have their own? (They don't. I hope I've made that clear to them.)

So back to memories. That’s what we bring with us…until we don’t. We each have our own version of those anyways. To be honest I relied heavily(!) on Fraser’s memory. It was remarkable…and super annoying during an argument. Super annoying! I tended to remember feelings while he remembered ‘fact’ and what was said. It took us years(!) to figure that out. So, I would tell him I only wanted him to use his memory to recall events and dates etc. but it wasn’t fair to use them during arguments. He did anyways. Gave him the upper hand over feelings. Feelings are stupid anyways…ok, not really but lately they are exhausting.

Memories that bring laughter. Memories that bring tears. Memories that will have to be made with him ‘only’ as a memory. It seems funny to mourn for what hasn’t even been yet when we aren’t guaranteed it in the first place. Maybe it should be enough to mourn the man who was and not who ‘won’t be’….but this human experience is about living for the future. Not the past and rarely the present.

Perhaps we should try to be more in the present. We can mourn the future but let’s not get too far into the future. That just causes unnecessary heartache where we don’t need more.

And so, in two weeks time (that seems like a useful ‘future time’), I am looking forward to witnessing people creating memories while sharing memories of Fraser who will unite us all…and also remembering the gift of the present.

...and I suppose I'll be buying an urn.

xo, Brooke