Lapsed Ordinary
Thirteen years ago, my wife Dimitra wrote a children s story about a magical kite for the teacher training course she was doing in England. Today is Clean Monday, a day when Greeks traditionally fly kites, and next week she would have turned forty, so I thought it d be nice to publish the story. I think [ ]
I ve long had this vision of you suddenly coming back to our house: the cat running down the stairs to greet you and you smiling and noting how little has changed since you died and don t we have a lovely house. But now the cat is dead as well. And there s a pandemic going on. [ ]
In the early hours of 19 July 2018, I found myself in the half-deserted corridors of a hospital. My wife was being treated for a life-threatening haemorrhage she had suffered the evening before and I was convinced she wouldn t survive. So I spent the night making plans for my life after her death, thinking about [ ]
A few days ago I dreamed Dimitra was lying next to me and said she wanted to have sex. I woke up feeling a strange mix of arousal and confusion, but it was also very comforting lying there next to her. A friend, who once was very close to her, told me she had recently [ ]
I saw the snow on Mount Hymettus from the bus yesterday and wanted to tell you, like there are often things I suddenly want to tell you. This time, for some reason, it almost made me cry. I have been thinking a lot about you lately. About us. I used to think that with your [ ]
After Dimitra died, one of many reactions was from someone who pointed out that there was no right way to grieve . For some reason this stuck with me. Sure, I knew that everyone experiences grief differently. But my grief always seemed really more different than everyone else s. For a long time, this was the narrative [ ]
When people hear the story of Dimitra s death, they often comment on how beautiful our relationship clearly was and how much we loved each other. This always makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. Yes, we loved each other and I am forever grateful for the time we spent together. And yes, looking back it was [ ]
I started using this blog for mental health blogging a little over four months ago. The motivation was pretty obvious: I had lost my wife, found processing our relationship to be more complicated than initially anticipated and struggled with moving on. I thought writing could help. I certainly did help. I never had a clear [ ]
that day I went to the post officeeven though I didn t want tobut I still didgrumpilybut then lovingly tooand picked up your parceland got ciabattas on the way backfor lunchbecause you liked ciabattasand you were so happyand said you loved me I often think of that dayto remind myselfthat in our own funny little waywe [ ]
So I am looking for new things to do. This is a post that provides some background to that. I joined Virus Bulletin in January 2007. I was hired to do maintain its website and make sure it didn t fall over when the BBC and Slashdot linked to it, which I did, but then there [ ]