Post five
Around three months ago, Reggie asked me to start attending a group session in Didsbury.
There are ten of us who go to the church, including me and despite the sunny disposition of Pat, the ring leader, it’s a morbid affair. Each week, the ten of us will gather around in a circle and talk about our lives. I think some of them find it comforting.
I have never spoken about Samantha. In fact, I have rarely spoken about anything at all.
Every week, Pat asks everyone around the circle to say a few words. The group hears each story and nods in solemn empathy. Eventually, it will be my turn and Pat will ask if I have anything to add to the discussion. I always refuse.
I wouldn’t know what to talk about – my life doesn’t seem comparable to the stories around the table. How can my situation compare to that of the woman next to me – struggling to bring up her two children – or the old man who always wears a shirt and a tie – alone after fifty-three-years of marriage?
What could I say? That I spend each evening drinking because I can’t stand to be in that bare house alone? That most evenings, I will run my hands over a box of meaningless possessions and wish she were still here? That I swear sometimes I can hear her walking around in the kitchen downstairs? Most mornings I wake up in yesterday’s shirt – stained yellow with beer.
They would probably call me a coward.
Really, I don’t want to share Samantha with a group of strangers. Even now, writing these blogs over the past few days, I’ve felt like I’ve been surrendering a small part of her; giving her memory away too cheaply.
