A Place that is dear to my heart

I have only lived on this shore for the past four months, but it has become the place that is dearest to my heart.

A year ago, I was living far from the sea, in the house that I had shared with my husband for quarter of a century. When he had died suddenly, the home had become a house, a stage set for a play that had ended. My two children were now adults, making their way in the world and I did not know what the future would hold. I had become a prisoner in the walls of this once happy place, suffering from approphobia, panic attacks, a very severe depression and the feeling that my life as well as the life of my husband had ended.

One day, full of sorrow, I decided to "google" the word grief. I found myself in an American chat room where all manner of people gathered to mourn their lost ones and help each other through the dark days. There were women who had lost children, hubands who had lost wives, those who had lost friends to illness or murder.....the room was sometimes difficult but always rewarding and eventually some of the names became friends.

One night a man came online who lived, as I do, in the UK. I had never seen him online before and we barely spoke. When he appeared again a few days later we began to "chat" and it wasn't long before we realised we had a great deal in common, especially as he was also widowed. When I mentioned that I was struggling with aggrophobia and that I had never had this condition before losing my husband he suggested that he could come and visit me, and take me and my son out for a couple of hours just so that I could leave the house. And so began our love story because the man who arrived about two weeks later is the man I will be marrying this summer.

But that is a different story. Suffice it to say that I am now living with him on the western coast of the UK, just north of where my late husband and I had dreamt of living for many years. I walk along the beach every day - it is my daily meditation as I watch my dog Martha run through the waves and play with other dogs, bringing me into daily contact with people who have smiles of welcome on their faces.

I hear the sea breathe regularly, and the beat of my heart echoes its rise and fall. This morning the tide was in and the waves were throwing themselves exuberantly against the sea wall and I felt the joy and peace rise in my mind. There have been dark days as I struggled to adjust to this new life but the daily walk has been healing. One grey day, the sky seemed to mirror the leaden feeling in my heart, but when I looked up there were hundreds of small rainbows falling out of the heavens and I took them as signs of hope. Another day, when snow was falling in flurries across the sands and tears of cold and misery were falling down my cheeks, I turned to look back at the town and it was bathed in sunlight falling through a break in the clouds.

I see ships turning in and out of the port, and am reminded of my late husband who was a merchant seaman, and somehow although I have left what was our home I feel myself more connected with him here.

I am reminded that it is many months since I wrote in my gratitude journal. It is time to begin again. I list my five things without hesitation this time. I am grateful for my love for my new husband-to-be and his for me, I am grateful for the health and love of my two children, I am grateful for my little dog Martha who reminds me daily of how one should enjoy the small things of life and love unconditionally, I am grateful for the chance to live by the sea, a dream of mine for many years, and I am grateful for the chance to begin to write and fulfill the other dream, the dream of a creative life.

My daily walk by the sea is where I medidate, compose poetry, talk to my inner self and listen to the rhythm of the waves as they centre me and work their healing power on my soul. This is where I have, almost miraculously, been restored to myself.