Daryl Wood's Blog

The cutlery drawer is not usually a trigger point for me but this morning as I emptied the dishwasher and began putting spoons and forks and knives away I was overcome with sadness that these were our utensils. These were the items we used every day for meals. These represented the hundreds of dinners we shared with friends and family over two decades. These were the things that became symbols of early grief when you couldn’t eat anymore. These are what I use now to feed myself in the disordered way I’ve been eating since the summer of 2018 when surgery robbed you of normal swallowing.

The challenge of mourning is that we don’t know what is going to ‘set us off’. I would not have thought that an innocuous cutlery drawer would start a cycle of tears that I’ve been trying to resist all morning. Writing about it helps. It lets the grief drip out of my body and mind for a brief period. It lets others know how hard it is for mourners to function well in a world that has mine fields hidden in something as simple as a kitchen drawer.

And it reminds me of the love we shared over your favourite spaghetti dinners, turkey feasts at holidays, neighbourhood gatherings, Farkle parties, fish frys on the shoreline and so many meals that you famously declared were ‘the best ever.’ When I sit at our table, as I rarely do, I can feel the joy of you digging in to yummy dishes and the pain of you sipping coffee while I ate. Someday I will be able to focus only on the happy celebrations we had with the cutlery I am carefully stowing away. Today, my heart is reminded of the uphill battle that I and others who have experienced the loss of a much loved partner face over the simplest of daily acts.