Dates to Mourn

Some anniversaries we celebrate with salubrious candour. Others... well, they just are.

The whole of life stands on dates. Every day of our lives has significance and yet we’re given doubly special cause to recall and reminisce over particular days. And spread over these days is a variety of emotion.

Some we look forward to, then celebrate and even mourn afterwards—for having gone on past such a long hoped-for time. But others just bring us an inexplicable nothingness. Due to changed life circumstances—for instance death or divorce—they’ve become noted for a sort of docile numbness that brings us nothing but either reconciled or unreconciled pain.

It’s the latter—mourning the date—which is in present sight.

Not Denying Our Pasts

There’s no getting around the people we are; the persons we’ve become.

Perhaps the most important thing in reaching these strange milestones is having the humble recognition that once these were very special. We might even choose to be daring and pay these milestones some homage. That shouldn’t do much harm.

It’s in these that we realise we’re not set apart so much from life that we’re beyond the pain of changed circumstances, even in spite of our wills to avoid them.

Let’s not deny who we are and how we got here. Even the fact of our feelings is good, for these agree that our once-good memories did actually occur. They reinforce our identities. Despite the discomfort we’re now perhaps facing, and that feared reality that stares through us right now, we can most surely know this is a crucial part of the ongoing healing process.

Heal well. Heal continually. Embrace the reality of that once-important date.

© 2010 S. J. Wickham.