Going soft

Ah, out of the mouths of friends. 

In recently days have spent some time with various lovelies who, during their commiseration conversations with me, will come out with a one and only quote or sentence that is so unique to them that it sits in my brain for days, usually with warmth and gratitude.

A lovely old friend of Tony’s and mine – and I say “old” in relation to our length friendship, not her years – although, when you think of Tony and I, if we have had a long friendship with someone then they must be old.  Anyway, we were sharing memories, as I find myself frequently doing when friends call in, when she asked about how I was handling the process of grief.

As per my usual response to people I am honest and tell them I have good days and bad days but the bad days are not sinking me into as deep a despair as they were a few weeks ago.  And she came out with the quote, “Yes, it doesn't really get easier does it, it just gets softer.”

That is how it feels.  Every time I leak love the feeling of loss is no easier, it is just softer.

And today I had a moment when the impact of the loss hit me greatly, in a nano-second.

But the impact was softer.

I was in the garage – Tony’s garage – and moving around some of our numerous bikes.  Tony’s last good bike is a nifty, orange Avanti that he rode for his last three Ironman events, maybe his last four.  As I wheeled the bike around the garage I noted the bike computer still worked so stopped and checked what readings it had on it.

It told me that the last time the bike was ridden it had done 91 kilometres.  That it had done those 91 kilometres in 3 hours and 50 minutes.  When I looked more closely at the computer it told me on the last ride it went on it did a maximum speed of 56.8 kilometres an hour but the average speed was only 23.2 kilometres per hour. It dawned on me; that was Tony’s last ever bike ride.  The last ride Tony had on the little orange bike.

It was the last Ironman Tony did.  The 28^th New Zealand Ironman.

The Ironman that due to horrendous weather had to be turned into a half Ironman.  The Ironman where Tony had decided “… to hell with it, I am not going to race this thing, I am going to enjoy it …” Which he did.  He stopped at all bike aid stations and thanked as many volunteers as he could for being out there, helping.  He even helped a couple of tiring cyclists along out on the course by encouraging them up that last 7 kilometre climb.     On this little orange bike I was holding.

Standing there, holding the bike, clicking over the figures on the computer I found I had been leaking love yet again.  Some months ago I would never have been able to even hold the bike, let alone wheel it anywhere.  Today I did, I had taken it off the hooks it had been hanging on in the garage for the past 18 months, dusted the cobwebs off it and wheeled it outside for the first time since Tony had hung it up in March 2012.  

Doing this reminded me that despite “leaking love” I must be handling the loss better.  The grief has not gone away; it has just “got softer”.

                                                  

             Tony's with his orange bike racked at Ironman 2012 - with yet another fan!