Regular readers of this diary may be under the impression that I’m a person with very strong views on most things. People may see me as a driven woman, a woman of action. And it’s true, I am very decisive; I write that I hate sewing and knitting, that I love my friends, the smell of cherry pipe tobacco, and hard work. I make decisions very quickly and I stick to my guns on issues that are important to me. This may be intimidating to some people, but it has not always been that way. I may come across as a ball-breaking amazon, but it’s all a façade. I was not made that way. Circumstance forced me to take on the mantle of responsibility and become decisive and forthright. Circumstance forced me to step out of my chosen role of supportive, adoring wife and nurturing mother, and pushed me out into the world alone. Having Charlie by my side made me feel invincible; knowing how much everybody loved him and respected him made me feel proud and blessed. Seeing him with his daughters, seeing the happiness it gave him, seeing his shining love for them and for me, made me glow with incandescent, unquenchable joy. I was given a gift when I met Charlie and I never took that gift for granted. As his wife, I had the luxury of knowing I had a wise counsel in times of trouble, I had his advice when problems arose, I had his quiet strength when I felt threatened. He rang me often, he thought of me constantly; he was the person I relied upon. With him by my side I stopped being ‘me’ and became ‘we’. I was twice the person I had been.

One of the hardest things about losing Charlie was having to stop referring to him. I became singular. I stopped having the luxury of being able to say, ‘I’ll have to check with Charlie.’ I had no pause for thought, no time to consider my decisions, no wise counsel to call upon. That was, perhaps the hardest thing that I, as a woman, had to accept. I needed my husband. I didn’t live a separate life from him, seeing my own friends socially, meeting with him for occasional meals. We didn’t circle around each other, we were each other; living in the same space, breathing the same air, thinking the same thoughts. His heart pumped the blood around my body, and when it stopped beating, part of me, the glowing, incandescent radiance of a completed woman, withered and died.

A friend of mine recently told me that she never really knew me when Charlie was alive. It wasn’t that I was cold or off-hand with her, but that I was so totally wrapped up in my husband that I didn’t need anything else. She told me that she found it hard to talk to me and felt that she was somehow intruding when she called round to see us. I can’t remember being anything other than welcoming, but she told me that in all our meetings at that time she never saw my true personality (pretty good job if you ask me because that’s some really scary shit…) I didn’t have to open myself up to anybody, or speak of myself, because Charlie did that. He knew everything about me and that was enough. Does my marriage seem cloying or suffocating? Does it seem saccharine-laden and sickly? I’ve never had a sweet tooth, so it was perfect. For me, it was perfect.

When I lost Charlie, I had to learn how to be confident. I had to learn to make decisions alone. I know I’ve written of this before, but I’m writing about it again because I need to explain myself to people who might be reading my words and thinking that I’m achieving something that they never could.

I’m only confident and forthright because I’ve had seven years to make myself that way. I was like a snail when I was married, protected by a hard, impenetrable shell - take away that shell and what do you get? A tasty snack for a passing Frenchman – sadly, not in my case; no, what I became was a miserable slug, a gutless mollusc, crawling along life’s lettuce leaf, waiting for the blackbird of fate to come along and put the lights out.

I had to make my own shell, and in order to make myself strong on the outside I had to make myself strong on the inside. You become strong by exposing your weaknesses. When you have nobody to hide behind, you have to expose every failing and blemish that you had previously kept under wraps; you have to stand up and say to people, ‘Here I am, this is me, warts and all, now either stand by me or stand aside.’

You become decisive by considering your own feelings and taking account of the possible outcome of your own actions. When you don’t have the luxury of a second opinion, when you don’t have time to think, you have to make snap decisions knowing that there’s no strong shoulder to cry on if you make the wrong call. You learn how to make gravy, how to start the lawnmower; you learn how to make mistakes. You may get lumps and a bad back, but these things make you stronger. Pushing yourself, pulling back from the brink, learning to walk along the edge without needing to look down, finding your feet, finding yourself. It’s a long, hard journey but sooner or later you’ll find that you can make those decisions, make gravy and allow people to see your true self without fear of rejection. And then you can look up at that big, bad blackbird circling overhead and shout, ‘Come on, take your best shot; I’m ready for you now.’


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