Tag Archives: Grief Loss and Bereavement

Well so fucking what?

Posted in Every day survival, Uncategorized, Whatever gets you through the night by
Image of Stephen Fry

Image of Stephen Fry (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Should grief and expressions thereof be a private affair?

Is it crass to publicise feelings, emotions, acts of recklessness, over a public forum where anyone from Tahiti to Taiwan, to the girlfriend of the Plumber with whom you were having a fling might read it?

Apologies for two posts in one day, but I am grappling with this tonight and need to set it forth. Close your ears, shut off your eyes if you’ve had enough. And if you are offended, refer to Stephen Fry:  “Well so fucking what?”

I want to write about M and the devastation His death has wrought. And none of my words are taken lightly. I have to set time aside to think about what I want to write – I am busy, I’ve got other shit to do. But the hour or two dedicated to the blog is sheer, unadulterated ‘M’ time. I can think about Him, me, my girl, my life since He’s been gone. It’s indulgence, but hey! What an indulgence!

In writing the blog,  I am attempting to decode my actions and emotions. Generally, they makes no sense until I write them down and then miraculously they all come together. I have no idea why I want to fuck the Plumber, but thankfully I write about it and it turns out it’s normal. Other people in similar situations feel the same way. This is strengthening, and as far as I can see, I am doing nothing wrong.

All compelling evidence why for me, grief should be a public affair, and why I will continue with this blog. If I am betrayed and get a brick through the window so be it.

With due respect to all other approaches to grief…

A blast of Charlie Rich

Posted in Bereavement Advice and Support, Uncategorized by
Behind Closed Doors (Charlie Rich album)

Behind Closed Doors (Charlie Rich album) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My Mother asked me the other day whether I thought my daughter needed grief counselling. It wasn’t a question; it was a statement designed to make me consider whether I had done the right thing in organising some for her.

This isn’t a dig at my Mother – she is a wonderful and caring soul who only has our best interests at heart. Yet for her, the concept of counselling is anathema. She simply doesn’t ‘get’ the notion of sitting in front of another impartial, trained individual and exchanging dark thoughts for potentially healing ones. She has been through her share of grief – one way or another – and as far as I’m aware has never had more than a small gin and tonic and a blast of Charlie Rich to get her through it.

After M died, I was referred for some counselling through my GP. The first woman I saw practised what is known as ‘person-centred’ counselling. That is to say, we sat in a hot little room for an hour and looked at each other. The next woman I saw was much more my style. I wailed, she offered me practical advice as to how to get through the week until the next time I saw her. She conceded that I would probably cry for M every day for the rest of my life. There was no ‘solution’ to my grief, but it was possible that one day, I may be able to accept that He had gone. We reached a point in our counsellor-client relationship where she couldn’t do anything else for me, but the time we were together was undoubtedly beneficial.

As for my daughter, she is having her first round of grief counselling later today. She doesn’t cry for her daddy, but she does mention Him a lot. Last night, for example, she drew a picture on a piece of paper and rolled it up.

“This is my map to find Daddy,” she said. She unfurled the paper. “Daddy is in the cupboard in a box. Daddy was set on fire.”

Maybe she doesn’t need counselling, but I feel as if I have reached a point in her grief where I can’t do anything else for her.

Two fatal errors

Posted in Bereavement, Uncategorized, Young widow by
English: cigarette butts

English: cigarette butts (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The family weekend at my Dad’s was unusual in two respects – there were no arguments and I was first to bed. Granted, we’d been drinking since lunchtime, but I pride myself on normally being the penultimate one to stagger up the wooden hill at these events – Dad is always last on the pretext of ‘locking up’, which is shorthand for a whisky nightcap. (Gotcha!)

This time, however, I was tucked up by eleven, shedding fat mascara tears onto the pillow. It was my sister-in-law’s fault. She has the misfortune of being a good listener and a pragmatist, and also had a soft spot for M, all of which combine to make her a lamb to the slaughter in the face of my mental state.

She made two fatal errors. Earlier in the day, she mentioned Him in conversation. No-one EVER mentions Him. Indeed, she went so far as to reminisce about a time when He was alive. Then, much later, she invited me outside for a cigarette and put an arm around my shoulder. Consequently, she bore the brunt of an emotional eruption of seismic proportions. She stood, helpless against the onslaught and said, finally;

“I’ll dispose of the fag ends. At least it’s one thing I can do to help you.”

I’ve been weepy for days, so it was perhaps inevitable that a sun-soaked, booze-fuelled family gathering without my beloved family member was going to be tough. And the reality is, there’s nothing anyone can do. Except dispose of the fag ends.

The Bard’s birthing room

Posted in Bereavement, Uncategorized, Young widow by
English: Birth place of William Shakespeare, S...

English: Birth place of William Shakespeare, Stratford upon Avon, England. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Several years ago, M and I visited Shakespeare’s house in Stratford-upon-Avon with some friends. The house stands alone and detached – a wattle-and-daubed anachronism in the middle of a busy commercial street. It was difficult to approach it with the reverence it no doubt deserves though, as the four of us couldn’t stop laughing. Each room had been set up as an approximation of its 17th century self, each with a descriptor stuck near the door. “This was probably the birthing room”. “This was probably the scullery”.

“This was probably the shitter,” my mate said, peering into a small locked closet round the back.

The problem was, we all knew how we were supposed to feel on a pilgrimage such as this  – awe, deference, respect – yet shuffling around the tight little corridors behind a fleet of Japanese tourists, I’ll admit I felt nothing. And neither did the others. Except an overwhelming desire to take the piss.

My experience of widowhood brings to mind that trip. I think I know how I’m supposed to feel. Indeed people tell me how they think I should feel and how they think they would feel if it were them. But in reality, how I feel bears no relation to how I think I should be feeling.

Just as I was a bad visitor to the Bard’s birthing room, I wonder sometimes if I am ‘bad widow’. Because some days, I feel positively joyful. Other days I wonder how the hell I’m going to go on. Most of the time, I just want to take the piss.

The sock, the genitals, the musical genius

Posted in Bereavement, Uncategorized, Young widow by
Love Sick

Love Sick (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

James bloody Blunt. I wouldn’t listen to him unless my daughter (aged 5) didn’t keep asking to hear him in the car. Yes, it’s my C.D. But I was young when I bought it. And woozily in love with my husband.

I have forcibly rediscovered it and actually, I kinda like it. I’m putting that out there because this blog is about honesty and raw emotion, and though James is far cry from my main musical love, Bob Dylan, I have found myself on the motorway weeping at the profundity of his lyric. Well, OK, maybe not the profundity of his lyric, but the fact that he seems to record everything in D-Minor (the saddest of all keys), therefore rendering me a wibbling wreck.

I have talked before about Gary Barlow (the sock, the genitals, the musical genius), and the reaction he elicits from me since M’s death. But unlike M, music was never something that was hugely important in my life. I’ve always looked on in awe at people who have extensive vinyl collections and are able to talk about Northern Soul without reference to Ant n Dec. However, since He died, music has taken on new importance. I find solace in it in a way that I never have before.

Take Dylan’s lyric from If You See Her Say Hello:

And though our separation, it pierced me to the heart. She still lives inside of me, we’ve never been apart.

Listened to sung in Dylan’s inimitable plaintive warble, it is simply heart-breaking. My separation from M is akin to some kind of torture, but this one line may end up on His gravestone (if I can ever bring myself to give Him up to the grave).

Meanwhile: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgViOqGJEvM

Bah, humbug!

Posted in Bereavement, Uncategorized, Young widow by
English: Mint humbugs

English: Mint humbugs (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I hadn’t realised until I lost M just how many Hallmark Holidays we celebrate in this country. The obvious one is Father’s Day, which is currently taunting my every shopping trip with its Wisden Cricket Almanacs and jars of Mint Humbugs. I’m not even sure when it is, or if Fathers necessarily eat Mint Humbugs (presumably they do, in the same way that Mothers eat Terry’s All Gold). But for me, and every other widow and bereaved child,  it’s another reminder of the role that He is not around to fulfil.

The other ‘holidays’ are just as bad. Mother’s Day, for example, reminds me that I’m a Mother without a Father to complete the picture. Grandparent’s Day makes me wistful for the future generations who will only ever know M as a face on a photograph – a long-dead relative with whom they have no connection. Valentine’s Day…well, you get the drift.

Truth be known, we never had much truck with Hallmark Holidays. Even Valentine’s Day was usually marked with a hastily bought card from the offie and possibly a bunch of scraggly flowers (if He was lucky). But now they have taken on new resonance – a Valentine-festooned florist’s window reminds me of the flowers He’ll never (not) send me. Each Almanac seems to jump out at me from the shelf, waggling its dick, insisting I notice it. “I’m for DAD!” it seems to shout. “Remember him?”

Of course, there’s a huge element of self-pity in all this. As I said, I never gave it a second thought before. But just as when you buy a new car, everyone else on the road seems to have the same one, when your child loses her daddy, it highlights the feeling that everyone else’s is intact. Readying themselves to receive a Father’s Day card. And a jar of Mint Humbugs.

Bah!

Retail therapy

Posted in Bereavement, Uncategorized, Young widow by
Money Queen

Money Queen (Photo credit: @Doug88888)

After M died, I was awarded a moderate sum of money – a ‘death in service’ benefit from those kind people at the pensions company. The consolation prize, as it were.

Don’t get me wrong, I am hugely grateful for the support (many widows, I know, are left financially as well as emotionally bereft). In a perverse way, I am fortunate.

But the money presents a dilemma. I hate the fact that my beloved M had to die in order for it to come into my bank account. And I hate that when He was alive, we couldn’t afford to buy a home of our own, yet now my daughter and I are financially stable, He gets nothing. It’s what He would have wanted, I know; it is why He nominated me to receive it in the event of His death. But the money is tainted and utterly without joy.

There is, in fact, a large degree of guilt in spending it. I try to think, ‘What would He have wanted us to do with it?’ I have tried to invest. Not be too outlandish in purchases. Reserved part of it for my daughter’s future. But they are all investments in a future in which He will play no part – except for being generous enough to die in the first place of course.

Profligate spending is apparently a well-documented reaction in grief, together with excessively drinking (guilty as charged), recklessness (also guilty as charged) and a host of other destructive behaviours (*coughs*). Whilst I haven’t been particularly extravagant – the £150 boots were an investment and I need the £600 cocker-poo for company, OK? – I have surrounded myself with things I wouldn’t previously have been able to afford in the belief that they would somehow make me feel better and life more liveable.

The new Louis V armoir is sensational, but Christ, I’d give it all back for just one more minute in His arms.