I really want this blog to be uplifting and honest but sometimes these things conflict. Grief is messy. It’s been hard to know what to write so I haven’t written a while.
I’m constantly composing posts for this blog in my head. It’s a way to express myself, capture memories and share my thoughts. Wonderful things are happening eg exploring Shamanic Journeying and a new found passion for long distance sea swimming but under this there is deep, dark sadness which is my new norm.
A few things occurred before and after Christmas 2022. A potent mix of having to pretend Ben was still alive to protect a friend with dementia, a couple of ‘family don’ts’ eg family dos which I just couldn’t face and finally confronting the reality of life never being the same again. Me never being the same again yet people expecting me to have moved on from the intense early years of grief. To be back to ‘normal’. It was my fourth Christmas without Ben…. How could it have been the worst? In Ben’s words ‘I wasn’t inspecting that’!
I guess it still is the ‘early years’ but I’m learning time isn’t linear, explainable or relevant to grief. Ben should be 27- a young man. I only knew him as a boy. I don’t know what type of man he would be. Imagine having a grown up son? Watching them carve their route through life, their hopes their fears.
Of course Ben danced to his own tune and may have chosen not to engage or share things with me. To a large extent I’d lost Ben 3 years before he died when we couldn’t access mental health support for him in the UK. But there was always hope. Even though Ben was a very different person to the one that went to Uni- he was still physically present and I could hug him occasionally- if he let me.
Some people get it and for that I am so very grateful. Some people get that they don’t get it. That works too.
However I have had to defend myself whilst others impose their expectations of how to grieve on me. The truth is my family didn’t lose just one person when Ben died; they lost two. Me and Ben. That makes them want to cling to me, place expectations on me, force me to engage and be present. But I can’t. At least not yet.
Family gatherings mean I have to confront the loss of Ben publicly and in a way that protects others. Parents/ cousins /nephews and nieces all growing older sharing new stories. I love to hear them but it hurts so much. I’ve got nothing new to share. There is literally a Ben shaped hole in the room. I know they lost Ben too but it’s just NOT the same.
I’m fed up of explaining and hoping folk understand. Most try to but don’t. So I accept that. But what I didn’t expect was pressure to ‘move on’. Pressure for not being present in the family. But my family isn’t present anymore. He’s gone.
I’m sad, broken, different and it’s not convenient nor socially acceptable. I’ve been perceived as selfish l, unreliable and demanding. Kindness and understanding have been withdrawn by some. It seems there is a time limit and I’ve over stayed it. Guilt upon grief. It’s just exhausting. And never ending.
I’m sad. This is an honest post but not uplifting. I’m sorry. I feel exposed.
But I also get how hard it is to relate to the grief of loosing a child. This was brought home to me this weekend. I went to see ‘The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry’ at the cinema with a dear elderly friend. It was her birthday treat to me. I’d read the book when it came out in 2012 and enjoyed it so off we went. I left at the end of film (quietly) in pieces. My heart was sobbing. The film was about a father who had lost his only son to suicide. He was performing a walk of faith to try to prevent his friends’s death whilst, finally, processing his feelings about his son’s death and his lack of power to prevent it.
Why hadn’t I noticed this when I read the book. Why hadn’t it been obvious? The interviews I’d read about the film didn’t mention it either. From Google:
What is THE UNLIKELY PILGRIMAGE OF HAROLD FRY about?
Synopsis. THE UNLIKELY PILGRIMAGE OF HAROLD FRY is the story of an unremarkable man who sets off on a remarkable journey. Harold lives a life without purpose until he learns an old friend is dying and vows that in walking across England to see her, his journey can keep her alive.
But there it was screaming out at me at the cinema in full technicolour. Here’s the brutal answer…. It was because his son had died 25 years ago. When I read the book I couldn’t understand why it was such a big deal. Surely that wasn’t STILL hugely relevant?
Oh I wish I still had that naivety. How was I to know that when your child dies you live with it’s ghost? ‘Out of order’ deaths are different. I have the memories of 23 year old Ben AND my ghostly imaginations of what a well (and unwell) 24, 25, 26 and 27 year old Ben might be like……all in my head and walking by my side. The longer the time passes the MORE the loss is.
People often say to me I can’t imagine how you cope?
Here’s the real answer: Firstly I don’t have a choice and secondly I don’t really.
What I actually say is DON’T imagine, your brain can’t go there for a reason.
Copied from the blog of a fellow bereaved mother Ruth McDonald in her blog www.theonemoment.co.uk
‘the trauma of the death of a child actually alters the brain function. Hearts and brains and souls were simply not designed to deal with such pain’.
“The death of a child is considered the single worst stressor a person can go through,” says Deborah Carr, Ph.D., chair of the sociology department at Boston University. “Parents feel responsible for their child’s well-being. So when they lose a child, they’re not just losing a person they loved. They’re also losing the years of promise they had looked forward to.”
It’s not my role to explain how help with grief but if I could it would just be: be kind. The post below is helpful though.
I too saw that film Anna and found it intensely moving. It had so many layers and I believe people will only see the layers that they can/want to cope with.
Sadly you are having to deal with how people respond to their own discomfort, which is often dismissive or blind to others distress.
It is to be hoped that they never have to realise the incredible pain that you live with in your own messy, kind and beautiful way.
Thinking of you often. I always pop in to see Ben when I’m visiting my mum x
Anna, I love how you write so honestly, laying bare your vulnerability and saying it ‘just as it is’! Your grief, as you describe it, resonates with my own so much … it’s like you are speaking for me, too. That gaping ‘Ben shaped’ hole you speak of, the family gatherings feel like an endurance test; watching the present role out before my eyes, seeing new memories being made, families growing … they may as well all stand around me, faces bearing down on me, accusatory fingers waving in my face, chanting ‘you’ll never have this’ – it’s sheer agony.
You are right, we are different – the loss & the grief has changed us and we can never be the same again, no matter how much others wish us to be! For some, it is inconvenient, uncomfortable, unpleasant; words mouthed but not spoken because it’s too ‘dirty a story’ to speak of … a rug with so much swept under it, it resembles a rocky tor! Mine is not a rocky tor … it’s a gaping hole, deep and wide; it’s the place where I reside. ‘Out there’, where I go to work, walk the dog, visit my mother, see friends … that’s existence, it’s not life. Yes, I can laugh, smile, engage in conversations but that’s just a veneer … it’s the mask I don every time I step outside my front door, so I’m a little more palatable for the world.
That deep, black hole is where I live, reminded daily of Samuel’s decision to end his life. There is not a day goes by I don’t regret what I did do, and what I didn’t do … all the ‘what if’s’ … revisiting periods in time, choices I made, things I said and things I didn’t say. Not having protected him more … stood up for him more instead of fearing the reprisals I might be on the receiving end of. Always trying to do ‘the right thing’ when actually, sometimes, the ‘wrong thing’ might have been the best way. He was always on the receiving end of someone else’s entertainment; poked fun at, wound up, bullied, frightened and it hurt him, deeply. I am angry with those who played that part and I am angry that ‘the system’ failed him (and us) time and time again … all the people and organisations supposed to be there to keep him safe, support and help him – failed, miserably! My mind is full of all these thoughts, and more … they go round and round in my head continually as I sit in that big, black hole – the pit of despair, MY pit of despair! What were his last thoughts? At what point had he made that decision? How sad he was the last time I saw him! Was his last goodbye to me actually HIS last goodbye to me? Did he think no cared about him? Did he think I didn’t care about him or, did he know I loved him? Was he sad and in turmoil or was he resigned and at peace? Was he was crying? Did he die knowing he was loved? Was it quick? Was it long? Did it hurt? Was it peaceful? What process did his body go through? So many tortuous thoughts and questions which can never be answered … and the immense sadness he died lonely and alone, in a bathroom … no loving faces for him to see, no words of comfort for him to hear, no one to hold his hand, embrace him and give him comfort. Make no mistake; there is nothing cowardly about that … I can assure you! In death we find eternal peace, so we are led to believe, so I wish to believe and trust. At least, in my pain, I know you have found peace, Samuel … all your angst and pain has gone and may you have found the eternal peace, acceptance and love you always longed for, and deserved.
Dear Anna, I was responding to your beautiful writing but as I did I began to realise this was morphing into my own story … I felt a sense of release. Your words reached right in and touched me and allowed me to write from my broken heart; honest and free. Thank you. I hope this does not offend you. Love and strength to you always, Anna. Claire.
Oh Claire- I hear you. It’s just so sad. I feel better after writing and I hope you do too. Our boys are at peace- It’s now my role as Ben’s mum to hold that pain instead of him. That’s ok, They are free. Sending so much love to your heart x