Lizzie Jones ~ Ordinary Days

People will tell you that anniver­saries are hard, as are the “firsts”—the first Christmas, the first con­cert, the first hol­i­day. You can brace your­self for those. You know they’re coming.

Grief isn’t just in the big things, or the obvi­ous. It hides in the very ordi­nary, the seem­ing­ly drea­ry moments of dai­ly life.

For me, the hard­est are the rainy Tuesdays and the sun­ny Thursdays. The morn­ings when my first thought, before I’ve even opened my eyes, is that this is forever—that life will nev­er feel ordi­nary again.

This morn­ing, grief was in the show­er. The bot­tles of sham­poo and con­di­tion­er are last­ing longer. Watching the water run freely down the drain—never again to be blocked by her long hair—I cried.

There are traces of her every­where. The lit­tle things that bring her pres­ence sharply into the room. Passing her red coat hang­ing at the bot­tom of the stairs, I catch her scent. I close my eyes and see her face, hear her laugh.

The half-eat­en McFlurry in the freez­er because her eyes were big­ger than her belly.

The car­ton of Candy’up choco­late milk and the saucis­son in the fridge. The house is full of her. We keep her close with sto­ries and mem­o­ries, speak­ing her name with love, always. I’m grate­ful for the laugh­ter. The mem­o­ries allow me to feel her pres­ence while bear­ing her absence. Nine months of miss­ing her, and a life­time ahead.

The door in the back hall, paint­ed with bright red chalk­board paint, still holds her wel­come-home mes­sages, count­downs to Christmas, and birth­day greet­ings. The vin­tage stock cube tin of chalk still sits on the win­dowsill, and her last mes­sage, though slow­ly fad­ing, is still there. I will not rub it out.

I read it and feel her there—still present, still part of the rhythm of our lives.

It says, “See you in a bit.”

~

Lizzie Jones is a moth­er of sev­en liv­ing in rur­al France. She writes about fam­i­ly, mem­o­ry, and grief, fol­low­ing the recent loss of her daugh­ter, Hannah. She is also a stained and fused glass artist, cap­tur­ing light, colour, and mem­o­ry in her work, and is cur­rent­ly work­ing on her first memoir.