Grief

Coping mechanisms

Day 976

Posted by

0

I grieve.

I grieve for his death.
For his guilt, his shame.
His self blame.
His sadness. His silence.
Every moment of distance.
Him, all alone. Forlorn.
His thoughts, torn.
His brokenness. Hopelessness.
His lightless eyes. His vanished smiles.
His hollow form. His shadow gone.
His quite desperation. Separation.
His terror. His fright.
Night after night.
Misunderstood, behind a hood.

I grieve.
For this black and white Now.
For this constant ‘How?’
That wretched day I went to work.
Every time I put me first.
Words unsaid. Eyes unmet.
Holidays unmade.
Jokes and Stories unshared . Games unplayed.
Songs unhummed. Beats undrummed.
Meals uncooked. Dreams unhooked.
Films unseen. Jeans uncleaned.
Hugs unheld. Incense unsmelt.
Cocktails unmixed. Good-nights unkissed.

I grieve and I am grateful
For all that was given
and all that was taken away
And all the nitty-gritty.
For it pushes me closer to Divinity.

Day 959

Posted by

4

In 20 weeks, it will be 3 years.

It has started to dawn on me that this is irreversible. It is final. He is gone and is not coming back. Ever. So far I was living in the third person. All of this was happening to someone else and I was just observing and documenting the proceedings as an interested spectator. A curious on-looker.

By a brisk random stroke of the proverbial brush, I had been shoved on to an alien canvas where I met wonderful people. They shared extra-ordinary insights. They had survived some harrowing traumas. Some, a long time ago. They came together and supported each other and there I was, one amongst them.

Somewhere deep inside, I imagined that another crude brush-stroke would flick me back on to the old canvas and things would go back to being as they were. But it is becoming clear that I’ll have to stay here, in this landscape, for as long as I live. There is no way back. No return. No re-entry. No u-turn.

At the start, his smell was in my clothes, his voice echoed around the house, his drums played in the back-ground, his favourite foods sat in the pantry, his clothes appeared in the wash, letters arrived in his name. Today, the batteries in the weighing scales died. He had put them in. It felt like something precious was snatched away, again.

With time, the distance is increasing. Between which two points? I am not sure.
Infinity and me?

Day 911

Posted by

3

“It was 20 years of not thinking about it and two years of chaos.”

He was only 12 when his mother died a traumatic death. He shut down all his emotions for almost 2 decades. He often felt on the verge of punching  someone. He suffered severe anxiety during social engagements. Living in the public eye left him feeling he could be very close to a complete breakdown on numerous occasions.

His response to the tragedy was to stick his head in the sand and refuse to think about it as that was not going to bring her back. It was only going to make him sad.

During those years he took up boxing as he was told that it is a good way of letting out aggression. That certainly helped him a lot as punching someone who had pads on was easier.

He finally sought help after persistent encouragement from his older brother. Since learning to talk about it honestly, he now feels able to put his ‘blood, sweat and tears’ into making a difference for others.

“The experience I have had is that once you start talking about it, you realise that actually you’re part of quite a big club” he said.

He’s now in a good place and will commemorate his mother, Diana, on her 20th anniversary later this year. He is Prince Harry.

Day 897

Posted by

0

If someone we know had a broken leg we would not say to them ‘Well if we don’t talk about it, things will be okay.” That would be unhelpful. Yet some people think that that is the way those who are grieving should behave and be treated. They genuinely think that if they don’t mention it then we’ll be fine.

An autistic child was visciously attacked by another student for “looking at her a funny way”. Her head had been repeatedly banged on the floor until she lost consciousness.

When the mother of the attacker was confronted , she revealed that the child who perpetrated the attack had lost her father in a violent stabbing incident some time ago. The mother said, “We don’t talk about it and she’s (the daughter) okay.”

I guess my point is about the unhealthy attitudes that demand that grief is put away, that the sufferer soldiers on without ever processing their feelings, without absorbing them into their daily life, without being kind to themselves. These attitudes would seem to be at the root of much trouble and strife that we see in our world today.

“Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”
― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

(This is an except from a piece shared by a parent from The Compassionate Friends.)

Day 819

Posted by

4

scan-3

The night temperatures are below freezing. The weather forecasts are sending out warnings of frost and black ice. I thought a hot water bottle for the night would be a good idea for uninterrupted sleep. I placed it against my lower back as I drifted off in fetal position. It was comforting and sleep-inducing, resting perfectly still against my lumbar spine. I was wrapped up in my duvet and the bottle, in a thick white cotton towel under the duvet.

Sometime during the night, I surfaced to a semi-awake state and felt a small bundle next to me. It was warm and cuddly. Still half submerged in slumber, my mind floated away into the past. My hands brought the bundle up to my chest and held it close. It didn’t move. I hugged it and kissed it. The pain of the love and the longing came back. The absolute joy of cuddling my baby came back. The memory of how he slept with his bum in the air came back. The sense of the way he moved round in his sleep came back. The tears came back. The pillow got soaked but the eyes stayed closed and the attention went to the sobs, the sadness and the breath and then slowly…the sleep came back.