What to do on a Sunday

Tony always played football on a Sunday. It was the one day of the week he relished, whether they won or lost. He’d then come home, shower and watch the footie on the telly whilst I read or wrote, we always knew what to do on a Sunday.

Tony died in my arms on the 17th of May 2018 at the age of 56. He had just been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer but it was a cardiac arrest that took him from me after 28 years together. The suddenness of it all and the days that followed is a story for another day but the emptiness builds with time. You spend so much time in the first months sorting out what needs to be done so you can carry on without your other half, you aren’t prepared for the ‘what to do now’ when you have filed the last statement. So what to do on a Sunday now?

A great friend who lost her husband two years ago told me not to make any major changes in the first year. Don’t sell your house, don’t change your job, don’t move country. And so far, I haven’t gone that far but I have made a decision about Sundays. Sundays are family days now. The dogs don’t go to the park, we lie in. I get up and make coffee and get back into bed . I watch the news surrounded by sleeping pooches who don’t seem to mind not going to the park, in fact they seem to be reluctant to move at all. It’s as though they know Mum needs this. Dogs are funny like that. I’m not sure what else Sundays will entail but lying in bed with a laptop and a cup of coffee surrounded by pampered passed out pooches is a start.

That’s me, a widow plus woofs starting life again.