A healing ritual

I know some people will disagree with me about this, but I think abandoned spouses have an even rougher time than widowed spouses. For a start, the widowed spouse has happy memories to look back on, whereas the abandoned spouse's memories, which, until a short time ago they always thought of as happy, now feel like a lie and an illusion. And secondly, widows and widowers have a public ritual to acknowledge their importance in the life of the deceased, and to act as a springboard for starting along the long road of the grieving process. Well, I can't do anything about the troublesome memories, but I decided I *could* create a ritual to mark the end to the relationship and to help me start to grieve.

My friend Margot, who I stayed with last night, suggest I buy myself some new bed linen today to help make a fresh start, and re-invent the bed as 'mine' now rather than 'ours'. I thought that was an excellent idea, so I did it. And serendipity stepped in with a clearance sale, which allowed me to buy my new bedlinen at roughly one quarter of the normal price.

Originally I thought of taking the old bedclothes to the second-hand shop, but realistically, who's going to want to buy second-hand bed linen, some of it over fifteen years old, and most of it in a pretty tatty state? Exactly - no-one! So I burned it, and recited a few words that seemed appropriate at the time. I stood and watched it burn until the fire went out. And it felt good.

Going...

going...

gone!