DH committed suicide on Saturday, rang Samaritans, not helped.

[RubbishMantra]

Anyone there? I 'm a bit done in. We'd been married less than 2 years. I got him a dollar bill folded into an origami carp for our 1st anniversary. He hanged himself. We didn't have DCs, but we have 2 beautiful cats. Sister flying in tomorrow. I don't know how he could leave me and our 2 little lads (cats)

Mantra - I have no words. Your 'clues' made me cry buckets. They are so lovely. I especially like the lighthouse. From a lot of the things you have said, there are a lot of little boxes in your lives - heart boxes, the mice in the treestump, the lighthouse and the lighthouse keeper. Perhaps you were both containers for each others selves too. If so, of course he will find you, because he will never leave you. Not at the deepest level.

Absolutely beautiful M. Particularly peculiarly perfect.

Yep, it's the public internet innit but also a private place - a bit like solitude in crowds for the modern age. Except that you are not alone; we are all very real indeed. As I type, I am aware of the solid dead weight of my oversized pet upon my rapidly numbing leg, and I'm imagining you, 40s style, in a black and white Doisneau pic in focus while a Parisian crowd whirls about blurrily. With a fat British person with scruffy hair and a cat basket marching in at the edge of the pic (that would be me).

Thinking of you this evening.

I'd be the other fat Brit with scruffy hair, C. Also a red sweaty face.

I'm glad I posted the list of things I left with DLH. They were all things that were very personal to him. I gave him the lighthouse charm when we were being buffeted by outside forces. To remind him, that you have your boundaries (rocks) and you, the lighthouse, can only shine a light on them, and remind people that the rocks are there. The lighthouse cannot move the rocks, even if it wanted to. Because they are rocks, and they are there for a reason.

Has quite a nice evening, a friend came over for dinner. Now patting stomach, that is safely containing a cheesy sauce centred haddock fishcake.

I've put in some photos of the little tree stump sculpture DLH gave me, if you'd like to see it.

Beautiful. (And that includes your post.) No other word for it.

Thank you cozie. I can't take credit for the lighthouse analogy, a friend gave that image to me some years ago, and I found it very powerful, having had boundary issues myself. I was able to find the same charm a few weeks ago, for myself.

I'm glad you found one for yourself.

Shall you wear it on a bracelet (if you keep it on you) or on a chain round your neck?

I love the tree, it is exquise.

A lovely idea re charm. I have a jade carving (my dad said ooh is it a wave, actually it is a mushroom/vulva as old Tao design but I withheld that, people think it's just a stone squiggle luckily) that I wear on a brass bead chain when I need to clutch at something. £1 at Sally Army.

Jolly handy, recommended. It is quite big and annoying, also recommended as it bumps things & grounds you if you are nervy.

Have you got a good chain M?

Yes, I have a strong silver chain that already has a silver clam shell that opens up like a locket to reveal a tiny pearl. DLH noticed me peeing my pants over it, and presented it to me on my last birthday we spent together. It's so realistic, it looks like an actual clam shell dipped in silver. I'll put the lighthouse on the same chain.

I've found a goldsmith who can meld our wedding bands into one, then drill a small cavity to encapsulate a smidgen of DLH's ashes, which they then seal up. Also his fingerprint etched on.

Not usually much of a jewellery person, but these things are like talismans aren't they?

Oh dear, Little Monsieur's just let out an orgasmic "uuuhhh, eerrrhngya!" during his nightly shag-bag shenanigans. Oh, now he's trying "spoons". He has no sense of decorum.

You write so eloquently about him and your life with the cats. It feels like I can imagine him. Stay strong, you are doing so well.

Little M adorable! One of the things I love most about cats is that their agenda is not ours. Yet they are definitely on side.

Jewellery sounds really wonderful. Have a decent day, thinking of you.

Thank you murasaki. It helps me to write stuff down about him. He was (is) my bestest thing out of all of the things, in all of the universes. Including the parallel ones. That's what I used to say to him. I found a note I'd left him, saying just that, I'd written it on a piece of paper I'd roughly torn into the shape of a heart. He'd kept it.

Hello C, I'm imagining us in Stout Shoes, marching on with cat baskets to the tune of "Onward Christian Soldiers". MCat's industriously biting his nails and "pftoo-ing" them onto the carpet. Does Mr. C do that?

He'd kept the heart-shaped note.

That is so lovely, echoing Cozie, M.

Mr C trims his claws by ripping up the carpet at the corners. MCat sounds a lot better mannered.

Strangely, M, the Sally Army don't go in much for military displays any more, although if you are a member (called officers) you have to dress up like a policeman ALL THE TIME. Or a cadet in WWI, ALL THE TIME.

Most people who volunteer there are not officers (I am certainly not) but the elect - the ones in uniform - are treated like princes, with terrific reverence. Makes up for rocking junta chic, I suppose.

Some of the traditions could give L Ron Hubbard a run for his money, I can tell you. But, and this is a huge but, the ethos of the place is as gentle and caring as the uniforms are Stasi - they really do help people without judging and they really do help people who walk off the street.

There's no falsely high caring voices or deliberately non-judgmental looks. No paperwork or come back on Tuesday. It's a strong cuppa, a sit down, and then rustling about to deliver what is needed.

Hah! Seniorboy expects me to trim his claws. He's making the most of his advancing years, I tell you.

Your Sally Bash people sound ...... pretty OK, Cory.

It was mostly the image you conjured, marching into the Doisneau picture that made me think of stout shoes. Wearing fabulous lipstick of course. Somebody I know was homeless at a point in their lives. Sally Army were the only people who would give him a roof over his head. And from what I recall, food. He's a miserable bugger, hates everything, but always said nice things about Sally Army.

We don't have junta chic here in the crunchyside. How is Monsier Ail Pieds? I imagine his feet to taste like my favourite cheese, Milleens. It's so strong, it makes Epoisses go into a corner and feel ashamed. DLH and I brought a few back from Dublin, in his hand luggage. We got dirty looks on the plane, i think they thought we were smuggling manure.

I recall doing an extensive shop for goodies before a plane journey - and they lost my bag. That was a fun wait! (I had no idea where in the world it was or how long it (and the contents) would take to return to me. Nor whether the contents might be impounded by non-vittal-friendly regimes, I suppose. )

You and DLH were actually quite lucky.

Thinking of you this morning.

Just had a saddening phone call with TSM. I was telling her about the beautiful urn I shall be putting DLH's ashes into. "How much?" she says. I (stupidly) tell her. Sharp intake of breath, then "But that's too much money!!!" Really?, I think. You spent double that on your stoopid fucking 60" plasma TV last year. I say nothing, because it's fucking up to me what I wish to spend my hard earned on. Good luck to the arseholes and their plasma telly and their toilet seat ways. Even though she says, "He was like a son to us!"

Words almost fail me.

How long before you can actually stop speaking to her completely if you wish? (Appreciate that there might be 'sale' issues to discuss so having undertaken to complete that, you can't really cut them off right now 'just in case'.) Have you been in touch with your Sis by the way?

Thank Christ it's not just me cozie.

It won't be long now (hopefully) with the property. That's why tsm rang, because they wanted me to forward proof that they'd bought the white elephant property. Of course, I asked all the reasonable questions, ie. "Do you not have records of payment yourself, or does your solicitor, tsm?" She even phoned back 2 hours later, (9pm-ish) to ask if I'd found the records and scanned them to her solicitor. I'd told her in the previous phone call that I would look into it on Monday for her. Didn't enquire as to how i was.

That really rankled though cozie, about DLH's urn being "much too expensive." It actually isn't outrageously so, and so what if it is? It's a beautiful piece of sculpture in remembrance of the most important person in my entire existence.

And yes, in touch with sis a lot. She's coming to stay at Christmas. We both hate turkey with a passion.

Sorry for ranting, I'm a bit all over the place. I've not been able to face food yet today, but now have a delicious smelling sweet potato and goats cheese pie in front of me.

I still think it might be a good idea for you to write some of the TSP acts/bêtises down as and when you remember them. I suspect that it could be useful for you to get at least some of them collected together and I don't, myself, believe that it would do you any 'reliving' sort of harm. (If you remember something, it means it's been sitting there in deep storage and (possibly) just festering. Getting it up and written about brings things into the oftentimes cleansing sunshine.)

See what your counsellor says, anyway, if you're in doubt. (You don't need to put things down in chronological order, either - just as they come to you: the joys of word processing.)

Hello Mantra - I'm so sorry, your thread fell off my TIO when I went away to Canberra in the school holidays for a few days - lost most of them because crap internet. :(

But I've enjoyed reading up on the 2+ weeks I've missed, despite the sad posts, there are a lot of uplifting and heartening posts too.

The TSPs just are the gift that keep regurgitating, aren't they? I do think you'd do better to limit yourself to email contact only, although by the sound of it TSM isn't averse to sticking the knife in via that medium either! :( I did snigger at you starting to use the riposte "Well at least he's still alive" when she starts going on about TSF though, hilarious! Mind you, I wouldn't put it past her to be working on an even more cruel put down than she's come up with so far, just to put you back in your place again, so time to be done with the voice contact, IMNVHO.

I love Goddess's take on things too and agree that your DLH wouldn't have left a part of him in that place; his spirit would have flown free as a bird from there, that little spark of pure blue would have ascended to heaven, wherever you believe it is. I'm a big fan of Carl Jung as well, and also of another chap you may have heard of, Roberto Assagioli - even more than Jung, his work resonated with me (twanged, in fact!) - psychosynthesis made the most sense.

I absolutely love your urn, and if it's not too intrusive, would love to see a picture of it, or one similar. What a beautiful treasure it will be, perfectly fitting for your DLH, whatever bloody TSM says. As if she knows!

I do believe you will find your DLH again - I think you are probably twin souls, and will continue to find each other throughout time.

Have you read Ben Okri's Famished Road? I don't recommend the book as a whole as most of it is (to me) mind-bendingly tedious, but the first couple of chapters I found also resonated hugely with me - the Spirit garden, where spirits meet and live while they're not inhabiting human bodies, and where they meet up with each other after spending a lifetime in a human body, greeting each other as old friends.

Glad to hear you're managing to eat better again now - keep up with the supplements if you can, they will help. And hurrah for finding a counsellor with whom you "gelled" first time out - brilliant! Really hope those sessions help you too. I too trained part way to become a counsellor, before realising that I was too "instructive" to be a good one, and had too many issues of my own - haven't ever gone back to it, which is a bit of a shame (although I work off my "instructiveness" instinct on here, a lot of the time!)

Huge hugs and love, strength and beacons of light to you - and maybe the odd and as well xxx

...the gift that keeps regurgitating...

That made me laugh. (A little darkly.)

Thinking of you this morning.