Pinot, Bretzels, and Cathedrals

A titles and something to write about. That’s what I’m currently stuck on.

Earlier this month I’d already written a more personal essay called “What I’ve Learnt In My Year As A Widow” but it missed the mark and it was a little less appropriate than my regular musings, so it’s currently sitting as a PDF on my phone. Mostly though, it lacked a poignant answer to my question: I’ve not learnt a thing about grief or widowhood that is worth sharing.

Another title could be “2026: A New Year, A New Me” which couldn’t be further from my reality because that sort of faux resolution makes me want to to vomit. It drips in clichés and is not the reality check I need.

And I do not need a reality check.

I am reality check. I’m also making a side note on my ToDo list to follow up with a South African tax savvy accountant AND write a French will.

I guess we’re all here to acknowledge that it’s been a year since Anton headed off to Bicycle Heaven, aka where the uphills match the downhills in equal measure and joy, and where the roads are smooth, safe and quiet.

It turns out there’s a new date to remember: January 19th. I am as overwhelmed by the kindness of friends who sent me a message during the day. It wasn’t what I had expected: it’s not like a Facebook birthday reminder, or how we’ve put our lifelong friends’ birthdays onto a calendar.

Instead, the date loomed in my own mind with some sort of noiseless despair. It’s not like the day was circled in red or even written down. Who does that? A death anniversary on a calendar? And yet somehow, it’s not a date that we would ever forget.

To honour his passing is important to me. Just how to do so was more of a conundrum. After all, so many other dates hold an equal amount of significance to me. And while 19/1/2025 is the day I acknowledge as when I became a widow, the last time I slept by his side was December 18th 2024. The last time he left the house and didn’t go to a hospital: December 2nd 2024 when he was Pere Noel for his office Christmas party. The last time I remember him having a proper laugh: somewhere in June 2024. The last time he drove: 21st February that year and last time he was truly in his own body, the same day he was last on his bicycle: February 14th, a week earlier.

So in reality, it’s hasn’t been one year of grieving, it’s been more like 2, for everything that we’ve had taken from us by that awful brain tumour.

What this means is that my journey of dealing with grief is somewhat different. It doesn’t follow the regular rhythms and patterns one would expect.

I would almost go so far as to say that I’ve already spent the last year moving on. I’ve long since had to solo parent, and while I’m ‘trapped’* on one hand (finances will always plague me, or mostly anyone to be frank) I also have an amount of freedom on the other.

(*I use the word trapped loosely. I am NOT trapped in any form of the classic way. Perhaps the words ‘tied up’ or ‘bound to this existence’ is more suitable).

But I digress. How did we mark the occasion of this period in our lives?

First off, we took to the low-cost skies for Christmas when we flew to Barcelona to meet my sister there.

In the days of the week and over a bottle of Spanish cava or 2 and homemade sangria, Andrea and I discussed what Christmas actually meant to each of us. Turns out, for me, Christmas is about food. So while I might have been quite alright being in Strasbourg for Christmas without Anton, if I had been able to invite a large group of friends and spent hours cooking a meal, followed by emptying several soldiers I mean bottles of wine, I might not have felt Anton’s absence to the same degree.

It turns out, though, Christmas is just another day, and it’s what you make of it. As in life in general. And while Paella in a cheap rental apartment kitchen pot isn’t the Christmas meal I anticipated, it was one spent with a cherished kind person and my girls, and that’s what makes it special.

But it was also about creating our own new world. I doubt we would have ever travelled for Christmas if Anton was around. I never questioned why- the costs I guess. And while I’m not in a position to afford this luxury more often, it was a first, and about forging our own new path. This is now about US. Beth. Alex. Me.

But we honour Anton in other ways.

Our values: be kind and respectful no matter who you deal with. We honour him in our familial bonds. We’re close, the three of us. We’re strong together. We might not all hold his ability to avoid conflict (my birthday twin and I have an ability to clash with devastating outcomes and my appalling passive-aggressive habit of dealing with being overwhelmed doesn’t help), but sometimes hiding your real feelings isn’t the solution.

We returned from Barcelona in time to celebrate Saint Silvestre in Strasbourg. It’s been years since we hosted a party in our home to bring in the New Year: little babies in the beginning; but a lot of those years I’ve worked. And then, I guess if I have to analyse it, Anton and I didn’t have a social circle here in Strasbourg where we could just be completely ourselves together – at some point in growing up, you stop giving a shit about trying to impress some people, and he had become a little more reclusive. I don’t know- maybe I’m overthinking it, but certainly we weren’t being invited to parties. So NYE celebrations weren’t our thing.

But now it’s just me, Alex and Beth, isn’t it? The rules have changed.

And we can have parties, so at a very last moment I invited some of my friends for dinner. It was mostly borne out of not wanting to go to bed at 10pm having sat watching Netflix in our pyjamas drinking Crémant.

Obviously I have some of the kindest friends who honoured me with my late decision to host, and the impromptu evening was a welcome treat for me. I got to do what I love doing: cooking for my friends. It’s something that Anton and I did together, we loved hosting people at our table. I got to feel happy when our guests enjoyed their meal, when the umpteenth bottle of wine would be opened and the candles would drip wax onto the brass holders, and eventually onto my tablecloths when the wind would cause them too flicker and burn too quickly (mostly in summertimes when we probably didn’t need the candles but what’s a meal without a burning candle?). Anton would get joy at being complimented for finding such a talented wife (or that’s what I like to think), but knowing I was happy would make him happy.

Last year, my year of grief and trying to find myself in this new place without Anton, I stopped hosting meals at my home. That’s not to say I hid from society. Instead I took up every invitation that came my way. Walks in the forest and mountains. Before I started at work, there was running. There were decadent dinners out at restaurants with a troupe of gorgeous women where it was hard to speak to everyone but it was sheer bliss to be caught up in that bubble. I’ve enjoyed delicious, delectable and heady summertime evenings in friend’s garden to celebrate birthdays. And I loved every moment.

But it turns out I miss cooking for people in my home. Sitting over a pot of Moms chicken pie or a roast lamb, a cauliflower steak on the braai, conversation flowing, music in the background, the clinking of wine glasses and the golden ombré of candles, the scent of perfume and food all bring me perverse pleasure. My table is my kingdom, something that Anton knew with quiet pleasure.

Going forward in 2026, I’ve realised what I need to do: bring the dinner table back home. I will be hosting dinners at my home once a month for a small intimate group of friends- a different set of each time. I’ve just read a silly (badly written) novel about a secret supper club. Perhaps that is where we’re heading in 2026. Gaenor’s (Not so) Secret Supper Clubs. Do you think you’ll get an invite? 😘. (I hope you say yes).

It goes without saying: I miss Anton with a dull ache. He was my partner. My person. My friend. My husband, the father to my girls, the person with whom I did life. We shared tasks, we shared news and stories. We shared a bed and he was the person with whom I was most at ease with, even naked under the duvet covers. No judgement. Nothing guarded. No pretences. Of course the same can be said of my friends, but my person that was all one thing is gone and I grieve that.

I’ve circled the question time and time again in my mind: what have I learnt about grieving over the last however many months?

Maybe it’s to Love Yourself again. Live for you. Live to honour the person who left you behind. My lovely SC-Y suggested that recently. I can’t keep looking back, it won’t bring Anton to me. The same could be said about me when my Mom passed 10 years ago. I felt like a piece of myself had been taken away. Did I not realise it at the time that I had to know myself all over again? Maybe.

In the immediate aftermath of losing a soul we don’t see these things. We’re lost in layers of darkness and frenetic attempts to hold onto our memories. It’s when we finally can step away and see how far we’ve come and how far we still can go that the load is lifted.

Someone asked me 2 weeks ago how I was feeling about the One Year Anniversary. It took a moment for me to admit that I was ‘fine’. Because I expected it to just be another day. The same as yesterday. The same as tomorrow. (I know some people feel this way about birthdays 😉). And then I had to point out- defensively perhaps- that in fact my journey didn’t end or begin on January 19th. It has been a lot longer than that.

And so the question remains: what will I write about in February?

Perhaps this era will mark the beginning of actual fantasy fiction and not an outpouring of emotions. But I think I’m ready to fly.

Don’t you?

Love and wishes from a very grey Strasbourg, where the humidity levels wrap themselves around the plants like a caterpillar cocoon and we spend our nights praying for sunlight.

Me.

Xx