The first year after Sharon died I suppose I got through it one day at a time.  On one level I could get on with things normally: working, seeing friends, walking, cycling, eating meals, but on another level I was in a sort of limbo.  Nothing mattered very much.  I would get up at night and cry. I would go off for walks on my own and hate myself for still being alive when she wasn’t.  I would see people who looked like her and it would be so hard to realise that it wasn’t her.  Hard to realise that I wasn’t going to see her again.

Work was difficult because of the boss I had at that time.  I had had the July off work after Sharon died and then it was the summer holidays.  Nik and I went to Wareham on a camping holiday.  I hadn’t realised until I got there just how often I used to get up in the night and pace the house and be miserable.  Now we were on a campsite.  Where could I go and be sad in the middle of the night when I didn’t sleep?  Well, I went to the toilet block and mooched about there, but it felt very strange. I was worried that people might catch me crying.

We had a good holiday, cycling, walking, having nice meals.  We went to Corfe Castle one day and climbed over the ruins.  It was a beautiful day and we saw birds and butterflies.  I felt guilty for doing nice things when surely I should be mourning and weeping, but I needed this time in the open air, pretending to be normal.  There was an empty place inside me, but life carried on.

I went to see my sister and we spent some time together.  We went up on to North Hill and she played the recording she had made of Sharon’s funeral.  We sat quietly together, just listening and remembering.

The hardest thing about that first year was that there was no Sharon to talk to about it all.  I missed her all the time.  It seemed so unfair to see other people with their daughters when my daughter was gone.  Other people had grandchildren, but I would never have grandchildren now.  Half of my mind still couldn’t believe that she had really gone.  Surely she was still there, at work or doing her garden or decorating her house.  I had only to pick up the phone and I could speak to her, but no, she was gone.

All of us struggled with it and each of us coped in our own way.  It was hard to talk about all that had happened because each of us was so desperately sad.  We mostly put a brave face on it and did what we could to carry on with our lives.

I started meeting up with Sue, M’s Mum, to do the flowers on Sharon’s grave.  Instead of meeting Sharon each Friday, most weeks I would meet Sue and do the flowers and maybe help M by mowing his lawn or something similar.  We would pop in when he had got back from work and have a cup of tea with him. But there was nothing we could do to ease his pain.

Life was a cold place without Sharon.

Fifth song: ‘North Wind’

Oh, North wind, don’t blow down my road.
Oh, North wind, don’t blow down my road.
All you bring is sleet and snow.
All you bring are tears of woe.
You’re a cold, cold, cold, cold, cold wind.

All my happy dreams you blew them away.
Too cold for happy dreams, all blown away.
All you send is dark and doom.
Shadows gather round my room.
You’re a cold, cold, cold, cold, cold wind.

You froze me, North wind. My heart has turned to stone.
You froze me, North wind. My heart has turned to stone.
Icy fingers crept inside
And froze the tears I might have cried.
Such a cold, cold, cold, cold, cold wind.

Why did you put the ice around my heart?
Why? Why? Why oh why?

Oh, North wind, I wish I could cry.
Oh, North wind, I wish I could cry.
Wish the spring would come again,
Bringing sunshine, bringing rain,
But all I hear is cold, cold, cold, cold, cold wind.