New paintings and regular art updates.
Our house, our friends, our relatives.
We were together so long
I can’t say ‘my’ yet
Even after a year.
Sometimes I feel like it’s a dream.
Hubby, my hubby, will be back.
Walk into our house
Be with our friends
Our relatives.
They know
I miss him.
So
Tears, in memory of him, digitally manipulated photo using photodirector (not AI). 4.12.23.
Do you need time?
Health, life, memory, stuff.
I need to have time to learn about aspects of my health. I’m gradually finding things out that I never knew. I need to listen to experts and scientific fact and find out how I can support myself.
My life needs organising, the last year has been horrendous. Lots of stressors and worries. Trying to sort out paperwork and filling in so many forms. I keep finding things I should have done.
Memories are fading of my soul mate. I long to hear his voice. To hear a recording of him would be good. But seeing photos can cut too deep. Maybe I need more time to come to terms with what’s happened.
Stuff? That’s the pile of stuff that’s in front of me, things that need organising, removing or storing. All that takes time, which is what I need!
In Devon 9 years ago, hubby had an idea to paddle our blow up bed with a trowel to see if he could get across the bay…. not a good idea as the wind was blowing out to sea… he has these odd ideas, which slightly worry me sometimes..
My portrait of hubby actually up on the wall at the Brampton open exhibition in Newcastle under Lyme. I’m so proud to share this with the world. It’s called mend him. I started it at my studio at Spode and finished it there after he passed away. It was my last painting at Spode.
It’s on till 22nd December 24 so a lot of people will see it. I hope they like it. The painting is covered in cracks as if he is broken and then the idea of using gold lines to hold him together like a broken japanese pot. X
We met in the September
Moved in together in October
16 years later?
We married.
In 9 minutes it will be our anniversary.
My first without him.
We never really celebrated
He wasn’t into birthdays
Or Anniversaries
A quiet meal
A glass of wine or beer
We were going to be together forever.
The shock when he went
Backed me into a corner.
Nowhere to go
Nothing to do
Surrounded by stuff
That holds me in
Trapped in a corner of sadness
Missing him
And tomorrow? In 5 minutes?
24 hours lost in greif
Lucky to get my painting “mend him” into the Brampton open exhibition in the Brampton museum and art gallery, in Newcastle under Lyme. Staffordshire. It’s on from 14th October I think. The painting is a portrait of my hubby I started last year and finally finished a couple of months after he passed away. I miss him. This is my in memoriam tribute to him.
I had decided to enter it as “not for sale” but the gallery wanted all images to be up for sale so I put a large (very large) price on it to virtually guarantee it won’t be sold. It’s very personal to me, but I wanted people to see it.
It’s acrylic on canvas and I started it in my Studio in Spode Site, Stoke. I finished painting it there after I decided to leave due to not being able to afford the studio rent any longer. It means this is the last painting I completed there.
My phone is full of photos and every so often I optimise them because the file sizes are too big. But that always mixes the dates up, and this time many photos of my hubby showed up out of the thousands of images I have.
Cue deep greif again. My man was funny, eccentric, bombastic, able to express himself. He was emotional and sometimes irrational. But he supported me and we loved each other. He had a mad sense of humour and although he could get angry about things that was more about incidents in his life that had caused him to suffer from PTSD.
Each time I see his face I remember and I am upset again. Decades of life together has made our link so strong. I wish I could have him back, not just photos, but the reality.
Describe your ideal week.
My ideal week would be to go out to a studio, paint for a few hours, make good progress on a painting. Go to choir practice. Cook tea for me and my hubby. Sit and chat about our days.
My ideal week would include going for a walk with him, he might go for a cycle ride to see a friend. He goes to bed early, I stay up late to read or watch TV.
In my ideal week I would sleep well, wake refreshed. Go for a drive somewhere with my hubby. Visit a national trust property.
In my ideal week I would try and paint some more, take some photos, go on the Internet.
In my ideal week I would still have my hubby, I would still have my studio, I would still be doing art or at least more than I am now. I’m just struggling to get back to something like an ideal week.
Hubby used to ring me from work in the evenings, he worked a late shift for several years. He didn’t go out to work till the afternoon and came home after midnight. I worked a day shift, so we really only saw each other over a late night meal or at weekends. Then his firm changed the shifts, so he had to start an hour later and finish later too. They also made the workers take a day off in the week and have to work Sunday mornings too. It was awful. That telephone call was our only communication in the evening.
He hated the job and was being bullied. He went to work on a motorbike and a few times when he got home late he was so exhausted he would fall off it. He used to say that he did more work than two people. Sometimes they would take on new workers but they could not keep up with him and some would not come in the next day because they could not cope.
I was so glad when he finished there. We managed to spend few good years together before he died.
I realise now why I can cope without him in the evenings, I spent so many years waiting for him to come home, and that’s why I struggle to sleep at night, my mind expects him to return later.
Mallaband-Brown