Grief

This won’t be for everyone

Several listeners have got in touch with me suggesting I should publish a book I have written about my recent bereavement. That won’t happen, at least not for a good while. I’ll explain why, in a moment. A number of those who expressed an interest in my book have experienced loss themselves. I got a sense that they hope some solace might be found in reading about somebody else’s pain. While the grief literature is large, it is mostly impersonal. Listeners sort of know me (at least my voice) and that might make things a little more real, perhaps even helpful.

That book is about a 50+ year story involving two people who met when they were 17, stayed together for a while and then separated. They met again 30 years later, utterly serendipitously, in their late 50s. A scarcely believable love story then ensued. And then she died. In a way, so did I.

One of the first things that happens to someone – me, at least - experiencing the death of a spouse is that they become unhinged in several ways. I have become gossamer-thin skinned. Putting a draft book through the rigours of the publication process would risk opening myself up to all sorts of feedback that I really can do without. I don’t want my inbox filled up with rejection emails – or to send my book into an uninterested void. For my own safety, it will stay unpublished.

Here, briefly, is what I have experienced over the past 3 months.

Learning to avoid criticism and rejection is one thing. And that’s surprising: I’ve been in the opinion business for years and can usually let it all wash over me. So, the first big lesson about grief is that it changes you, maybe temporarily, but definitely fundamentally.

Avoidance of literary critics is one aspect of a broader lesson. I’ve always preached that we should avoid toxic people, but all too rarely put that belief into practice. Survival now demands that I do so. But it is hard to rationalise why I find some people’s words and behaviours so difficult to tolerate: I just do.

Here lies the second lesson: if something isn’t working, don’t do it. And don’t overthink it, stop asking why, don’t ask yourself if you are making any sense. If people aren’t doing it for you, if they upset you in some way, avoid them. It may not last, and you can silence them in ways that don’t upset or hurt them. Their words and actions may not be so extreme that the relationship has become toxic (although, in my case, that has happened). Perhaps ‘inadvertent triggering’ best describes what they do. Something is said or texted that provokes the emotional volcano. They probably – possibly – don’t realise what they are doing and have good intentions but terrible execution.

Everyone experiences grief differently. Not everyone wants to share. Avoidance of grief is common. There is a paradox here between the large number of people who want to forget and ‘move on’, and those who reached out to me regarding my book. Don’t let anyone force you into anything that just feels wrong. Take your time, move at your pace, nobody else’s.

But do move. The enemy is pointless rumination. That leads to darkness. That’s different to revisiting memories. But when the bad ones turn up, be aware and develop mental tricks to move on from them as quickly as possible. Say to yourself something like, ‘oh, here you are again, where did you come from?’ And then think about her smile.

Eat. I’ve lost 14 kilos. That really is very stupid.

Sleep – if someone could offer a tip or trick to cure insomnia, I’m all ears. The hours between 03.00 and 05.00 really are the worst.

Listen to a book or podcast or joyful music while forcing yourself to go for a walk. That’s you doing the forcing, not somebody else. The physical and mental health benefits of exercise, even a short walk, are not just academic findings. Exercise helps.

But nothing ‘works’. At least not in the sense of bringing anything like ‘closure’ – that truly awful word. I hate it. Some things do, however, help.

Seek out, deliberately and without apology, people who are happy to be with you and who let you be you. Friends who are as unfazed by your tears as your manic laughter. People who don’t feel the need to fill the gaps created by your long periods of silence. Nobody knows what the ‘right words’ are, because there aren’t any. Learn the difference between authentic and performative compassion. It’s actually quite easy to spot. Everyone asks ‘what can I do’: spend time with the ones who actually want, rather than dread, an answer to that question.

Pain is not just emotional or mental. It is physical: something manifestly awful happens to your gut. A low-level sensation of burning is the best I can come up with, but it doesn’t really do the feeling justice.

One relative, describing her own loss, said she felt like she was dying from the inside out, in a way that nobody else could see or comprehend.

Expect palpitations and heart fluttering. (For any medics reading this, the latter have now largely disappeared.)

Alcohol makes everything worse.

The switch from husband to carer is brutal. On the day of her terminal diagnosis, I was fully employed, working for myself. Virtually all my activities instantly stopped as she began the chemotherapy/radiotherapy regime that is much worse than they ever tell you. A treatment program that left me with lots of questions about its worth. She endured so much, but for what? A few extra weeks of life?

If, today, I was to get the same diagnosis, I would thank the doctors and refuse all treatment. That’s not advice, just a very personal view.

I’d worked all my life and on the day of her death found myself with nothing to do – for the first time ever. During her illness there weren’t enough hours in the day. Now, so much empty time. All the emotions repressed during the 13 months of caring hit me like a series of incoming missiles. They are still coming in, albeit with a little less frequency.

All those things you hear about the incredible doctors and carers working in places like Marie Curie are truer than you could possibly realise. And when medics are crap, they really are crap.

Watching somebody take 13 months to die takes the sting out of your own death. You fully appreciate its inevitability and that, surprisingly perhaps, makes you less afraid. But the manner of your death? That’s a different matter.

You will probably hear lots of stuff about things like ‘The five stages of grief’. I find such things useful, but only when adapted to my own circumstances. Adapt them for yours.

I do like the last of the five stages: “Acceptance”. Not the acceptance that leads to resolution, but acceptance of the fact that grief has driven me into a form of madness. Accept who and what you are in each moment.

I have some confidence that I will emerge from it all but am certain in the knowledge that I have become – am becoming - a very different person. I am curious, without judgement or reproach, about what that person will look like.