A Bit Griefy
My brother and I swapped text messages one recent morning noting that, if our father had still been alive, he would have been celebrating his 95th birthday.
As it happens, Dad was just shy of 88 when he died – more years than he had expected, not as many as he’d hoped. John died in 2017, our mother Donna two years after, and nothing is ever quite the same once both your parents are gone.
Not terrible, just different. A greater sense of your own mortality, the late dawning of acceptance that you are the grown-up now, and learning to fold the grief into yourself until it becomes part of who you are.
There are things I want to say each time a friend tells me they have lost a parent. Not only a parent – also a friend, or a cat, or a job. The scale might look different, and grief is specific each time you experience it, but it is also the same.
First thing to know is that it is exhausting. You feel tired in your bones. There is something about experiencing loss that saps our energy, as though the universe is telling us to rest and be still.
Problem is, when someone dies there are a million things to do – arrangements, decisions, plans. As much as you might want to take to your bed, it is a busy time.
Which is a great reason for us all to leave instructions for what we want – take some of the thinking off the shoulders of the people left behind.
It is also a reason to be super kind to each other because we are all doing something big and new (like planning a funeral) when we are physically, emotionally and functionally at our worst.
Second, you did good. You were a good son, or a wonderful sister, or a fine carer to your cat. That sadness you feel is all the proof needed about how much you loved. And whether you were there at the end, or not there, or wish you had said or done something differently… none of that matters and these are not things worth remembering. Be gentle with yourself.
Third, grief brings with it all the emotions. Not just tears and sadness, but frustration, rage and despair. I have been surprised at the fury I have felt – not specifically related to the death it would seem, but there it is just waiting to throw itself at something, anyone, like an angry dog demanding to be taken for a run.
You may not be expecting anger in your cocktail of feelings but don’t be shocked if it’s there, and don’t think badly of yourself. Just direct it somewhere safely. I am a fan of howling at the moon.
The fourth thing is something I learned from my mother. Donna often said it was a good idea to keep some photos around the house of when you were “young and vigorous” (I love that she said “vigorous”) so that great-grandchildren, for example, might appreciate you have not always been the old lady they’ve met, but you’ve also been young and beautiful and an adventurer.
I was bothered, I think, in those first months by memories of how my parents looked as they left us. And so I put in frames some favourite photos – my mother laughing aged 53, my father relaxed and happy at a party. These are the images my brain goes to now when I think of them.
Not just on birthdays. Every single day.