This is not the worst cycling accident in the world:

I saw this picture of a bicycle in a sycamore tree some three years after losing someone precious to me. Something about it made me save the news cutting.

It seems in 1914, a lad propped his bike against a tree, went off to war and never came back. The tree grew round the bike, absorbing it into her trunk. In time, I assume, there will be nothing visible.

When you lose that special person, the grief is unfathomable and indescribable. I remember standing and staring at nothing, not even wanting to breathe. There was nothing left in my world and I did not want to be a part of any other world. After a while, my lungs took over, demanding air. I gulped in a great heave. And on I went, disappointed to still be alive.

You can tell the really grief-stricken by this, the gasped lungful as if you’ve been to the bottom of the ocean. You have. The depths of the ocean of your misery. The emoters, they just heave a big theatrical sigh, not this desperate grab for air. You can’t fake that and those who have been there will know that.

Everything is stripped from you. You have no defences. You can’t even cry any more.  Everything goes right in and it all hurts. It feels like your nerve endings stick right out of your skin.

I walked down the street and felt the cold breeze blowing across my soul.

And then, one day, something is funny. You feel like a traitor to your heart. Nothing should dare to make you laugh, to betray your grief.

Well, you’re not a traitor.

You are starting on the healing process. You, the tree, are beginning to absorb the memories of the one you lost into you, as the tree grew round the bicycle. You are not losing anything.

As time passes, things happen, but don’t worry, the memory hasn’t faded. The tree has taken it deeper inside you. It will always be there, you don’t have to wear it on your sleeve, let it grow into you, into your DNA.

And yet, somehow, that grief was one of the greatest experiences life can offer. You go to the very edge of existence. Never mind strolling up Everest, you go to places beyond the galaxies in those emotions. It’s a lonely journey, but, somehow a voyage you will come to view almost with longing.

Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony has a funeral march. I listened to it many times. And I realised it was not about loss, or grief. It was about the remembrance of that grief, in a way both sad and comforting. A reminder that you have been to the depths and come back. Comforting because you will know you made it, you’re a  survivor. Stronger, with all those memories inside helping you grow.

And if you find a new love. Don’t worry, that is still not a betrayal. Do you think the one you lost would seriously not want your happiness? Just don’t compare the loves. They are always different, just as the love  for  your children is different from the love of your partner.

So, tree, keep growing. Don’t worry about the bicycle, it will always be in there. Even when nobody can see it any more, even when you can‘t be sure where it is. It will always be there.

I should have added:

You cannot love a dead person.

You can grieve. You can mourn. You can treasure the memories.

But, love is for the living.

Love requires trust. Trust requires uncertainty.

The dead have no uncertainty. For them, all is known and all is unchanging.

And don’t worry about what you did or didn’t say. The dead know all that. And they know what you meant and why you said it.