A lovely novel translated from the Swedish about a man coming to terms with a difficult new situation. Five golden stars.
A man called Ove.
I worried, as I started reading the book that, he was like my father and I was getting to be like that. Oh no! It didn’t quite work that way.
It’s occurred to me today that there were three layers of love, with ‘you-know-who.’
The first was when we were ‘falling-in-love’.
The second was when our relationship was recognised by us and our guests. (Some noticed before us)
The third layer was after she slipped through my clumsy fingers and left for her new life.
Over time I get to know her better and love her more.
….
our big photo album
…….
with thanks to Gabriel
Thank you for your kind responses via messages, phone calls, Facebook and here on this site, to my two letters. It’s been important for me to share and feel your support.
In passing through the grief portal of pain to love, to understand and know Manjula better. I’ve found a few useful books.
The letter to Manjula was me talking to her to recognise my loss, and share with her, my remorse which I wasn’t able to before she died. It’s part of a process outlined in the grief handbook the book on top of the pile.
I’ve maybe written the letter a dozen times but it’s only now I’ve felt able to share it with her. In therapeutic groups or pairs they’ll often read their letter out to each other.
It’s quite interesting to shift from focussing on her body/ego to her soul spirit wherever that might now be.
It’s been quite a journey from the devastation I felt through to recognising my absolute love and devotion to Manjula. There’s now more sweet and less bitter and my first thought is now more likely to bring a smile, than a tear.
I now know her better, partly as I’m researching and writing our story.
Meanwhile Mysore comes back to life. There’s been an unlocking. Here’s a few shots from our morning walk
Here’s a recent post from my Facebook page.
I admitted that I hadn’t quite got round to my letter to Manjula ( I still haven’t managed to complete it) and referred back to a wonderful review from a previous guest Manjir who visited years ago with her husband and daughter. Here’s the review. and original posting. It helps show why we loved sharing our home and will continue to.
Manjir has just written to me today, remembering Manjula, with kind thoughts and has shared a great quote from Rabindranath Tagore: “In the dualism of death and life there is a harmony. We know that the life of a soul, which is finite in its expression, and infinite in its principle, must go through the portals of death in its journey to realise the infinite.” Thank you for your support Manjir.
It reminds me of another quote I also found this week, which also resonates as I work through the pain of grief to discover my and Manjula’s love: “anyone who has experienced the passing of someone close knows that death is a portal to love.”
It’s late at night and the page is blank so I turn to Laozi and Pooh bear.
Actually that’s not true. I turn to you…… to help me get the ball rolling, to create and share my and Manjula’s story. It’s the age old writer’s conundrum. As you see I have a pile of full notebooks but how to get the blank page filled to begin to start the actual story. Can you help?
If you know Manjula and I or even if you don’t 🙃 what’s the key ingredients of our story that might interest you or a wider audience. What are the main themes that will interest people?
I’m reading the book about finding meaning: the sixth stage of grief. I’m writing notes as Kessler talks about “the secret to remembering with love begins with accepting the pain not trying to deny it or ignore it….. love is on the other side of pain”
I’m reflecting on how I’ve managed this over the last year. As I write this I’m gently crying, sniffling just a little bit. Lucie looks up, stares with her sad brown eyes and squeals as if to draw my attention. I think she knows what’s happening and wants to comfort me. So we have a stroke for support.
At that very moment a black and orange butterfly flies into the balcony with a message: Manjula did feel my love and would have always known it was present.
to our extended family, our friends from around the world, the community that grew around sharing our home
27th March 2020
Dear family,
thank you for your patience, kindness and support.
It’s been an awful twelve months since Manjula died, a pot-holed, rocky roller-coaster ride. Being able to speak to you directly, through my writing and sharing my feelings has been tremendously helpful. Your direct responses and visits have helped me through these difficult times. Thank you for those who’ve also been here to provide direct practical and emotional support, you know who you are and have made an impossible situation manageable.
Thank you for being a witness as Kessler writes:
“Each person’s grief is as unique as their fingerprint. But what everyone has in common is no matter how they grieve, they share a need for their grief to be witnessed……… they need to feel their grief acknowledged and reflected by others.”
As you know, I’ve shared and its helped. Thank you for letting me share with you, gain your support and help me to manage this tragic loss. I’ve most definitely been through the five stages (Kubler-Ross) of loss: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance, often all at the same time and what I hadn’t realised was the anticipatory grief years before Manjula actually died that we also had to experience.
Loss of a lover, loss of a life, loss of control, loss of the opportunity to do things differently, loss and the grief that results from it, is for me the hardest thing in life.
I also know now that: Grief unites us.
“You will never forget that person, never be able to fill the unique hole that has been left in your heart,”
I’m so pleased you met and go to know my beautiful smiling brilliant wife directly through visiting us, or introduced through these pages. She leaves a wonderful legacy in what she created and leaves part of her in all of our hearts.
It goes without saying that she will always be with me and I know the grieving will never be over but I look forward to finding the right balance in Manjula continuing to be part of me and me finding meaning and growing beyond that loss, then ………. “the time will come when memory will bring a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eyes” (Kessler)
We’ve now recognised Manjula’s death anniversary with a Hindu Pooja ceremony and lunch for immediate friends on the 12th March (the official Hindu anniversary), shared the BIG photo album (a copy is on this site) then on the 23rd I cycled Manjula through the city, sponsored meals for older people at a local ashram, and had a few drinks here at home. We still have Manjula’s shoes carefully positioned around the house in case she returns and needs them. (Didion)
Over the year I’ve been careful to do the Hindu rituals, placed flowers at her two main photos in our living rooms monthly, some times weekly, sited benches in our park and at a city museum. I’ve printed t shirts in her memory, hoisted bunting made from her clothing, created a memory tree (Teckentrup) (please ask how you can add a memory or wish) and given gifts of Manjula’s pens.
We plan to celebrate Manjula’s life in August, around her birthday, please do join us in person or virtually, that’s when we’ll also re-open Mysore Bed and Breakfast, if we’re through these challenging virus times. I plan to keep this place going for at least a few more years (our first season without Manjula was bitter sweet but worked OK) and so invite you to continue to share our home.
Manjula will always be here.
I have been trying to write to Manjula for months and failed, I need to share my remorse for things I feel I could have done better and more, to ask for her forgiveness and to thank her for our wonderful, funny, life enhancing nine years together. It will be posted soon.
I’ll continue to post on www.meandmycycle.com which is the best place to follow. Writings will be varied: about life in India, more factly fiction stories and I promise there will be a lot less of the grief. I’ve committed to Manjula to write our story. I’ve verbally shared bits and people have liked it, I just need to write better to do it justice. Who knows when that gets finished and released, we’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime there’s many of our times together and challenges of living in India already featured here and I’ll add more, including her funny videos.
Thanks for becoming Manjula and my family and I look forward to travelling together on the next chapter of our journey.
Your loving friend
Stephen
and Lucie
PS
Manjula would joke that I as I was bringing so many books into the house it would become a library when I was 75 and no longer leading cycle tours. Well, the quantity and variety of books have grown and grown and now include sections on grief and writing (guess why?) and so Manjula’s library is now at our house. 😉 and no I’m not 75 yet. Do pay a visit or ask for recommendations.
The one’s referred to in the letter are:
On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the five stages of loss by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler
Finding Meaning: the Sixth stage of grieving by David Kessler
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
The Memory Tree by Britta Teckentrup
Lucie let out an almighty sigh as I was writing this.. maybe she also gets bushwhacked.
Joan Didion, in her wonderful book: ‘The Year of Magical Thinking’ about her husband’s death would talk about entering the vortex. The unexpected ambush when reliving a previous moment from your life with your loved one.
I think of it as a bushwhack. Mostly unexpected, a memory resurfaces often with a visual trigger. Today it was seeing this…
Manjula’s signature on an application for a PAN (taxation) card from 2015. Shortly after her diagnosis and our engagement.
It happens all the time and often with bubbling tears.
Its also significant as it’s all she could write.
It’s an important day as the Poojari has read the stars, consulted who knows who and what to issue a hand written decree that today (12th March) is actually Manjula’s death anniversary and not the 23rd as we mere mortals might have assumed. I was on duty this morning making breakfast for two sets of guests one from Belgium and the other from Canada had gelled wonderfully on yesterday’s cycle tours.
After breakfast the real work began preparing lunch for our immediate team and special guest Kanchana.
A BIG thank you to SB for everything, Satish was project manager and his wife on cooking duty. Good to see Vasanth and his wife
Pooja for Manjula was completed by one o’clock then we all went outside and closed the door for Manjula to come and tuck in.
should we allow five or ten minutes? I reckoned ten as she was a slow eater. We then knocked on the door to warn her and reentered. One more turn with flames. I’d forgotten to count and so might have done extra. MAnjula wouldn’t have expected anything different.
then we were allowed to eat. Quite unusually in our house. Men first on the floor, women, the sophisticates, at the table. They clearly had planned to feed the five thousand so a fair amount was distributed to the poor. Of course we’d also sponsored food at the ashram for the elderly residents as we, Tom and Amy have done numerous times.
Lucie got tired just being Lucie. It’s fair to say she was overcome by the emotion of it all. She’s clearly in tune.
as are the water Lilly and today’s innovation the memory tree.
Manjula, our star, we miss and love you, sometimes it’s too much to bear but we have lots of wonderful memories to help us through.
Just arrived, a collection of photos of my beautiful wife and our Mysore Bed and Breakfast family. Also available as a PDF. Why not come visit and see the album for yourself? You’d be sure to feel and meet Manjula too. 🙂
Me and MYCycle 