Trying to write a diary entry in the school holidays is never easy. Just as I get 'in the zone', one of my girls will wander in and ask me something, or request a shopping trip, or, worst of all, will shout something from another room, which invariably prompts a response of; 'Stop shouting at me and come in here and speak like a normal person.' To which the tearful reply is almost invariably, 'I was only saying I loved you.'

So, I'm sitting furtively typing in the hope they don't notice my absence, but I know it won't last for long.

It's Easter and this is always a time of contemplation for me. I don't much care for chocolate, so the egg thing completely passes me by, but I am always reminded that this is a time to think about re-birth and renewal, and most of all, about death. We all know about Jesus on the cross, but he's not the only one who died at Easter. This is also the time when Charlie died. Admittedly, most people know about Jesus and few know about Charlie, but as I didn't know Jesus, and knew Charlie really rather well, I think I'll write about him today.

T.S. Elliot wrote that April is the cruellest month, and seven years ago I would have agreed with his sentiments. I thought that my life had ended on April 8th, but in truth it was just the beginning of a journey for me, a personal trip to hell and back. But April brought sunshine and April brought hope. When I saw the first of the crocuses pushing their heads above the ground I knew I had survived another year alone. Winter is always a depressing time. It's dark and it's cold and it's bleak. There's Christmas to get through and then there's two months of long nights, and cold, damp days. It's a war of attrition, a battle with depression and negative thoughts, but once the first rays of sunshine begin to warm the soil you know the end is in sight. April really isn't cruel to me; it's a budding, bursting doorway into a happier time.

I often think of the symbolism of Easter and of how it applies to me. Part of me did die on that blustery April day, but what remained was so much stronger that I ever imagined. It lay inside me, like a small bulb of resolve, it lay dormant; it lay still. But what emerged a year later was a germ of inextinguishable hope. Like a small, green shoot it pushed it's way up through the blackness that enveloped me and forced its way into the light. And with the arrival of each subsequent April, that small tender shoot grew stronger. I grew up. I grew as a person and as a mother. I found I could write in a way that touched people, and I began to develop a talent that I might never have discovered had things not turned out the way they did. Many things lie dormant inside us, and stay that way because we never have the need to call upon them. But sometimes fate takes a different turn from the one we were expecting and we have to call upon all our resources just to be able to survive.

So much has happened to me in the last seven years and so much more is promised. You could argue that it was pure chance that my publishers chose to bring the date of publication for my new book forward by two months. It might have been chance that the new publication date is the day before the anniversary of Charlie's death, but it seems a like just another one of those strange happenings that mark my life as it is now.

And now out of my Apple speakers comes the crooning voice of Chet Baker singing, 'My Funny Valentine'. It's the song which always reminded me of Charlie, and it reminds me that the love that once blossomed rich and red and full, still lies within me, but now it lies like a bulb in winter, away from sight, away from the light, undisturbed, but still alive.

So April really isn't as cruel as it once was, it's the month when my life will change; did change. It's the month that brings about the completion of a labour of love; a book, which means a great deal to me because I know it will help so many people. But I'm not the only one who has grown over the last few years and I'm not the only one who recognises what's been achieved. My daughter Rosie recently said to me, 'Mummy, if Daddy hadn't died you wouldn't have been able to help all those widows.' such words of wisdom and acceptance from an eleven-year-old. Of course we'd all rather have Charlie back, but so much good has come out of the tragedy of his death. We have all grown. We have all blossomed,. and now, as the sun dips over the rooftops, I can reflect that I have changed in so many ways. I'm a bit scarier than I once was; I'm uncompromising in my attitude to life, I'm decisive because I have nobody to refer to, I'm compassionate because I've borne witness to so many tales of hardship, I'm able to give advice to others because I can see more deeply and feel more acutely than I could before death hit me. In fact, to borrow a phrase from Chaka Kahn, I'm every widow. It's all in me.

So here's to April, the most bounteous of months, the time when new lives spring forth from the cold, still earth; the time of growth and renewal.

Happy Easter to you all.


© Kate Boydell 2004. All rights reserved. e-mail: [email protected]. Close window.