Over the year, my grief has evolved into a being of it’s very own. Burrowed deep, it’s taken up residence in my soul. Sometimes it rests there for a week, other times it can’t sit still. The taming process – long and hard. Now she rarely escapes in public. Unless you look beneath the flesh and bones, you’d never know she existed. No-one does.
Grief. A private person at the best of times; invisible in confusing ones. Camouflaged deep within ensures her survival, like a desert ant. Who was he anyway? A friend? An ex? A star-crossed lover?
His death wasn’t the only one this year. My uncle and cousin’s son died suddenly and (for the latter) far too young. Their names can be uttered. Their status solid within the family tree. But him. Who was he?
He was a man who lived more in one life time than most would in ten. Living and loveing to the fullest extent of human capacity. His absence leaves a space whole armies couldn’t fill.
I’m not in the inner circle of the pain and grief that his death has caused. I’m an invisible circle at best. A circle that only he and I could understand the meaning of. Now I alone carry that knowledge. A burden upon so many others; one that won’t lessen with time, but one I’ll carry tight, for it’s presence is the only thing left of him in my life. And now, in death I can understand what love actually means.
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Writing this was so hard. When the memories come, it’s still crushingly painful. It’s not the moving, well written tribute I wanted to write; I couldn’t get through a paragraph without the tears flowing hard. So it’s a disjointed insight into some of the emotions of the last year. And a muddled list of memories of a wonderful man. He deserves more, but for now this will have to do.
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I’ve experienced so many seasons without you, yet this year was something else. The tears still fall. Sudden and explosive, catching me off guard like a lion exploding from the bush. Soft and gentle, falling silently as I lie awake. Like a mosquito striking at dawn and dusk – their presence suddenly unmistakable and deafening. I try to re-inhale them; a reverse wave, crashing inside my eyes instead of to earth, the exhaustion and futility of tears that have no end. The thought that you aren’t somewhere on this earth sleeping, nor will you wake tomorrow is too much to bear.
The first month: a living hell. Curling up beside my new born son, drifting in and out of thoughts of you. The tears – spontaneous, hard and often. Waking and re-learning the horrendous truth that you were no more. The lives I bore, the only reason for clinging on to mine through the pain.
A weekend in our old stomping ground. Time spent with those you loved way back when, and always – you weren’t one for fake friendships. Strangers, now united in our grief and disbelief.
As I walked into the room, locking eyes with your best friend, we clung to each other. Someone rescued the baby from my hands before he joined the tears falling to the floor. I stayed close to your friend all day, soaking in his presence and his memories. He did you proud. Leading the group and encouraging a sharing of anecdotes of all things you. I breathed in so many memories I could almost feel you again.
It was torturous too. Visiting places you’d lived, we’d lived. The theatre where we saw my favourite musical (was it your first ever?). I looked for that Italian place you used to work in, the one where you always ate leftovers, but it wasn’t to be seen.
The reminders were everywhere. Peering through the window of our halls, staring at the spot where we’d once kissed was beyond any pain I’ve ever known. A marching band went past in full force – a touching tribute to one so special.
I bought a painting I could ill afford from a fair in a park we’d once walked; wanting something to remind me of you. It’s hung in my bedroom now. I wondered if it was just a way to torture myself more? Yet I didn’t need such an object, my home is resplendent with triggers of you.
The green spice jar beside my cooker, the one we got on our travels. The little notebook with your hand written recipes on my kitchen shelf. The trinkets from your travels. The photo frame you gave me which housed your precious face until I married. That colourful blanket you gifted me, I shrouded myself in it in those first few weeks wishing I could smell you still. The CD mixes you made me – covered in your distinctive writing, showing me how much I once meant. The zippy key ring hanging from my son’s lamp; I’ve moved it to my room now, for fear he’ll lose it after all these years. The jewellery in my drawers, more meaningful than anyone could ever gift. Eating an avocado, I’m pulled to that time we sat in our guest house smearing avocado on each others face – natural, organic face masks, we laughed.
There’s more memories of you in this home, a home you’ll never see, than there is of my ex husband. What does that say?
Christmas came and went. Going out I was reminded of our times partying. Everything is a trigger when you have so many shared memories. The grief ebbed and flowed like the river we basked by in India that fateful summer.
The fundraiser in your name sent me reeling. How could you be reduced to this? Scrolling through the messages I felt I should hide. Who was I to you? Your letters, unknown outside of my existence. You’d moved on. Your partner understandably devastated by your death. She alone is allowed to grieve. She is the one whose life has changed. Mine is merely shaken, continuing upon the same path. Single mum, unloved by any man.
Your death has ushered in certainty where once there was (absurd) hope; second chances laid to rest. I’d been gifted two, it’s more than some: one dead, the other divorced. Is it any wonder I’ve given up on my dreams of love (for the foreseeable)? Knowing that you – a man who once loved me and did so decently unlike so many others – has gone, takes away a little more of my past, and unsettles the uneven ground around me.
Though the frequency of grief-triggers slowly lessened, the pain became more stubborn. Like that analogy of grief as a button in a box, my box has grown, but when the button is pushed, it’s debilitating. I’m grabbed by the throat, and slammed against the wall. Oscillating from wanting to vomit, to utter deadness inside (no pun intended).
I’ve learnt to stop praying for what ifs. Not because they aren’t the most beautiful thoughts my damaged mind can conjure up, but because I fear the hairline fractures I sustain after each wish and subsequent realisation, may ultimately lead to my collapse: Again. And so, I have learnt to not think.
CBT counsellors say it’s about dismissing negative thoughts. When they describe it, it sounds sensible. When I feel it, I’m empty inside. I’ve stopped having wants and dreams, because in this case they are dead. They were dead when you were alive, but in the privacy of my own heart they blossomed freely. There to pull out when I needed to believe in life, in hope, in me again. Now, I try to conjure up your memories to give me strength. I picture us on that beach. You reading to me, telling me I could write like that someday. If only you’d read what I did write. Would things have been different?
Some weeks my grief engorged itself on sadness. Triggers were everywhere, yet I felt guilty and alone. What right did I have for feeling this way? We’d not been in touch for months, nor seen each other for years. But I missed you when you were alive, now your absence is cemented in the permanency of death, the regrets and pain are plenty. Sharing these feelings seems almost unfair to those who were in your life, who were loved by you in real life and not some past/ fantasy I lived and (was) loved in. But all lives have seasons and I was a season in yours.
In those times when the grief button was inflamed, I mainly held it in in public. The odd tear on the train which I tried to hide from my eldest, though he often saw. Passing through a city we’d once frequented. Visiting the countryside you’d so loved. Seeing friends we had in common. In private, every so often it overwhelmed me. If I tried to put the feelings away I felt guilty for moving on in a world without you. Even thought you weren’t in my life it didn’t mean you shouldn’t be in your life, the prime of your life. That was cruel and unfair. Accepting that was wrong.
Yet living in sadness, mourning a man who wasn’t mine to mourn has been hard. No-one asks how I am. No-one mentions you to me. Why should they? What relevance could you have? Probably more than most. Perhaps that’s the worst of it. In your passing, my mistakes are more evident, more painful, and more permanent. I wish I didn’t implore to be understood so much. Is that my personality, or the reality of living a life alone? The pain I feel around your death is just another thing that no-one gets. Just like no-one sees how many hours I spend rocking the baby, or screaming at the kids, or struggling with the multitude of things which seem to go wrong in my life. The only witness, my five year old. Again. It was he who comforted me. Asking why you died as he hugged me uncertainly. Now he speaks of you occasionally, I’ve told him some of our memories. Sometimes it warms me to hear your name spoken by him. But his obsessive questioning of what age you died doesn’t get any easier to answer.
Grief, as so many say, is not a linear path, it’s ups and downs and looping right back round to where you started. After the shock of the first six weeks I moved on to a place where I could function without constant tears and breaking down. That itself was a shock. But then the grief slowly grew again. This time, less shocking, less harsh; more constant, stronger and determined. It unleashed a fear I can’t quite shake. If losing you was this bad, what about others in my life? Now my death experience was pricked, I found myself living in a bubble of grief, surrounded by other bubbles looming on the horizon. My mum, my dad, and for those – like you – who I could never imagine.
Perhaps even more depressing was the thought that there’s noone else who means as much in my life – past, present, or (it feels) future. Knowing you had no idea that you’re the person I’d grieve most in the world (outside of family), and you weren’t in my life when you lost your own, just emphasises the futility of my own life and relationships.
It was May, coming up eight months since your death, when I finally started to feel OK. Yet still the triggers didn’t disappear. Searching for an email, unconnected to you, brought up your words: ‘hello stranger’ the subject line. Your name staring blankly back. I could almost hear the tear as my heart ripped in two. My stomach wretched. Tears sprung forth. I missed you more than you would ever know. I missed knowing that you’re walking on this earth. You shouldn’t have been gone, and I regret not being a part of your final years.
When things are tough, my mind often wanders to thoughts of you and things become pointless. When things are good, I often think of you and things feel pointless. As time goes on often I don’t think of you for days, some times it’s been a week or two. Though that’s rare. Occasionally I remember a memory and smile, but that’s rarer still. Perhaps one day I’ll reach that point but it still feels a long way off.
The pain of knowing I won’t lay my eyes upon you again sways from bearable to agony, often in a split second. Your death came at a time I was starting to move on from the pain of my recent past. Yet now, your absence has taken the brightest star in my life (that I didn’t give birth to). Though not a star I could touch, your existence was enough. Now with you gone and so little else shining brightly, it’s a dark road. I try to light it for my boys, and in your memory, but it’s a constant battle. Looking back on us so fresh faced and full of promise I wonder what we’d have said if someone had foretold you’d be dead and I a struggling single mum of two before we hit forty. Would we have taken different paths? I like to think we would. But hindsight is useless now.
You’ve gone.
You were gone from my life before you were taken from yours. Now, all I have are memories and regrets. How lucky I was to have experienced your love, your laughter and your presence. Death initially felt like it had taken all that from me, but I was wrong. Those memories live on in me. That you don’t live on is devastating and always will be, but to those memories I will cling.
To the brightest star of them all.
Lala salama.
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