Absolute Beginner – A Personal Story of Grief
2023Jul
1,000 days
Fran Hall
Jul
15
4 comments
Today it is 1,000 days since Steve died. It feels right to acknowledge this somehow, at least by writing something. I don’t feel inclined to go and spend time by his grave, unlike at the more ancient markers of time, when the seasons turn at the solstices; I’m always drawn
2022Mar
500 days
Fran Hall
Mar
02
1 comment
Oh my love. 500 days have passed. 500 days without you in my world. How have I got through these days? I remember as clear as if it were yesterday the moment that you died, the sudden knowledge that everything – everything had changed. Everything about that
2021Jul
Isolation
Fran Hall
Jul
16
1 comment
Photo credit: Rachel Wallace Photography Day 271. Almost nine months into this new existence. The last couple of weeks have been difficult. I’ve been feeling unwell, symptoms of a bad cold which are, apparently, also symptoms of someone double vaccinated who has contracted the Delta variant. A lateral flow
2021May
Poetry and signs
Fran Hall
May
26
1 comment
A dear friend sent me a poem at the weekend. Technically, she re-sent it, she had shared it with me soon after Steve died, so the words were familiar, and yet the second I started to read them, the fragile skin I have so painfully grown over the depthless well
2021Apr
Love writ large
Fran Hall
Apr
10
1 comment
Love writ large. That’s something I heard a passer-by say quietly as they walked along Albert Embankment this week. They were walking along the National Covid Memorial Wall, with tears running down their cheeks. Thousands and thousands of others have walked the 500m length of the wall of
2021Mar
Finding words
Fran Hall
Mar
24
1 comment
I think I understand now why the sea is so often used as a metaphor when talking or writing about emotions. When I’m trying to understand how I’m feeling, the descriptive words in my mind are almost always found in analogies to do with the oceans – the waves,
2021Feb
Waiting
Fran Hall
Feb
28
No Comments
Years ago, in 2008, I was crew on the Spirit of Fairbridge for the Tall Ships race. Spirit was a beautiful 92’ schooner dedicated to giving disadvantaged young people new opportunities in life and being part of her crew was a huge privilege – and an unforgettable experience. I was
2021Jan
100 Days
Fran Hall
Jan
26
3 comments
26th January 2021 Today it is 100 days since Steve died. And four months exactly since our wedding day. At the weekend, it was the tenth anniversary of my mother’s death. It was a rapid dying, from glioblastoma multiforme. In January 2011, I spent my 50th birthday sitting by her
Children and grieving
Fran Hall
Jan
09
5 comments
We couldn’t have children at Steve’s funeral ceremony. Covid restrictions on numbers meant that we had to be ruthless in paring down the people allowed to be present, and there were so many whose connections with Steve went back years, we made the judgement call that they had to
2020Dec
Making sense. Finding patterns
Fran Hall
Dec
23
3 comments
Time is slowly drifting by. It’s 12 weeks since we married. Nine weeks since Steve died. Seven weeks since his beautiful funeral. The days come and go, shorter and shorter, darker and darker, until Monday’s shortest day, the Winter Solstice. Yule, the ancient festival marking the victory of light over
Unexpected people
Fran Hall
Dec
12
1 comment
‘Communitree’ – artwork created by young offenders at HMP Cookham Wood Steve and I came across an exhibition of work by young offenders while we were in Anglesey in 2018 and this piece caught my eye. One of the things that has surprised me the most over the last months is
So many layers of grief
Fran Hall
Dec
07
4 comments
Almost two months have passed. Seven weeks since Steve died. Seven weeks of rolling waves of emotions, of reflection and remembering, interspersed among the detritus of the life that was before. One of the things that resonates strongly with me as I walk every day is just how much grief
Stuff
Fran Hall
Dec
02
2 comments
In amongst all the swirling newness of life without Steve, there is also an extraordinary amount of stuff that sits silently waiting to be attended to. The stuff that he accumulated in his life. Mostly, it’s his clothes. Clothes are hard. Clothes are memories, of where they were bought and
2020Nov
The sun keeps rising
Fran Hall
Nov
27
7 comments
I took this photo on November 4th, the morning after Steve’s funeral. I was out walking before sunrise, on my own with my thoughts. As the inky blackness of the night sky gradually changed and lightened, and the orange tint of sunrise spread across the horizon, there was something so
Absolute Beginner
Fran Hall
Nov
21
8 comments
A personal story of grief There is a beautiful little book by Baptist minister Richard Littledale, called Postcards from the Land of Grief which my friend Clare mentioned to me a few weeks after Steve died. I recognise that description, with a jolt of familiarity – ‘the land of grief’.
Stop all the clocks
Fran Hall
Nov
07
4 comments
Time. Time and space and dates and days. Right now, I am finding these measures all bent out of shape. My perception is warped by profound events that I have experienced since the last post I wrote for the blog, in September. But I can see a thread