Bowing to the inevitable

Just about every evening, Jen and I would have a cup of tea together. Not - God forbid - with tea bags, but the right way. Warm the teapot and the cups, put in three teaspoons of good quality leaf tea (Prince of Wales was our evening choice), and use a teacosy. Set the teapot on the trivet on the coffee table, put out the milk jug and the cups. Settle into the armchairs and chat, or open a book. For the first six months after Jen died I used that same teapot, even though it made far too much tea, because we'd used it together hundreds of times over the course of at least a decade. Finally I swapped to a smaller teapot (one that I gave Jen for solo tea in the daytime), and then eventually to a teastrainer (still, mind you, using leaf tea). It lacked the associations, but it was simple, practical and wasted no tea.

That choice to retire the teapot (except when visitors come) is the kind of small compromise that has been repeated frequently in my life now. I'd like to cook all meals from fresh ingredients, as we did in the past, but for a few of those rushed nights (making dinner after sport), I've turned to frozen options. I would prefer to maintain the garden with my own hands, but instead I pay a friend to do it (I still mow lawns and tidy the yard). Sometimes I wish I was more productive in my job, but instead I limit my work hours so I can be present as a parent.

At the other end there are compromises I will not make, because of the faith and values that Jen and I held dear, and that I still maintain. To pick a small example, apart from when we are away or 2-3 big running events per year, we are at our church every Sunday morning. That's not because it's always fun, or compulsory for spiritual health, but because it's part of our commitment to that church community. Some Sunday mornings I would rather sleep in more, but I don't. A friend said to me that the art of parenting is choosing which hills to die on -- deciding which issues matter enough to hold the line.

Somewhere in between are the compromises I could make but haven't so far. One of Jen's requests to me was that I wouldn't put Secundus (our youngest) in before or after school care. I said that I couldn't promise it, but I'd try. So far, with continual help from family and friends, we have managed to do it.

Many of these compromises revolve around my choices about how to use time. My PhD supervisor said,quoting his own supervisor in reference to postdoctoral employment: "There are three things of which you can only have two: good money, good science and a nice place". For my life it feels as though there are ten or twenty things, of which I could do two or three really well, four by cutting some corners, five with lots of compromises, and six only by pushing myself to the limit. The other four get dropped. What are those ten or twenty? Doing my day job, keeping the household running (cooking, cleaning, washing etc), being a parent, helping with homework, enabling the boys' activities (sport, music etc), keeping up with friends, being involved at church, doing the garden, having a hobby, reading books, keeping fit, writing a blog etc etc. They're not all of the same size! I'm sure you could make a similar list.

Most people I know are also very busy, and face those same collisions of priorities. The change for me was that when Jen died, I had to find another 20 hours a week in an already busy life - hence the reduced sleep and the hectic days. After Easter I had one of those grey weeks, where even though the 'big picture' seemed OK, I was despairing of all the small compromises that eroded the quality of everything I did. I'm sure other parents and especially single parents can identify. Eventually I had to step back and accept that a good part of it was my choice, within the limits of my situation. This semester I've been auditing a subject in early church history, which has been very enjoyable, but taken most of my free time (hence this blog has suffered). I could do less of other things and work more, and I'd be more productive as a scientist. I'm choosing not to, and so I have to accept the consequences of that choice, both good and bad, and not complain.

Deeper still is accepting loss. The other day I saw a scene from the end of "The Return of the King", the final 'Lord of the Rings' movie. Frodo is home after all his experiences. He muses:

How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep, that have taken hold.

So with Jen's death there is no going back to the world of before. We are not in a holding pattern, not merely making do, not just picking up the threads, but we are making a new life without Jen.  This is it.  Frodo's wound, made by a cursed knife, still pains him on the anniversary of the attack at Weathertop. The grief of Jen's death is like a terrible wound that has healed on the outside, but that I feel within on those anniversaries, and that surprises me again and again in unguarded moments. I do experience happiness, and I hope I will more and more, but that loss is a wound that time cannot mend. Ultimately, because of the way that love is tied to grief, I do not want the wound to heal completely, and so I must accept that pain as necessary and important.