All at sea

What does grief look and feel like years down the line. A few thoughts written a week or so before mum's eighth anniversary in May 2023.

What is grief eight years on? I realised that as much as my intention has been to share and try to open up a conversation about the tougher parts of life, I haven't really sharing much more than the 'in recovery' phase of my life. Photos of the moor, books I'm reading fill social media, which is all well and good, but I still feel the need to get some of the other stuff out into the world. And with mum's anniversary a week away, grief has been on my mind. 

I’ve been feeling at sea these past few weeks. It’s those tell-tale signs that crop up the week leading up to mum’s anniversary. It’ll be eight years on Wednesday 24th May. Her death is sandwiched in between the boys’ birthdays. This year it’s Ollie’s 18th on the 21st and Charlie marks the end of his teens and the start of his twenties on the 25th, plus the 24th May coincides with Ollie’s first A level exam. Four days of seesaw emotions but as ever, the emotions aren’t restricted to those days.

Because as much as I’d like to say I’m fine, the reality is more complex. I miss her every day and I think about her every day. How could I not? It seems odd to pretend otherwise, yet I think that’s what I try to do. I just keep going because that’s what you do with grief. You find a way to keep going.

I carry her loss more lightly these days but there are times when I feel her absence intensely and have this overwhelming need to try and connect with her, pay attention to who she was rather than the fact that she isn’t here.

Reconnecting with them when they’re gone

When it does strike I sink into a melancholy. I don’t want conversation. I want to just hunker down, be at home, be quiet until I’m ready to re engage again. I do this hiding in plain sight but that’s where my head is during dog walks or mooching around town, putting the kettle on or choosing music to listen to while I work.

It’s why I’ll do things like go to Salts Mill – she used to go there with her sister when we came to stay with them in Menston all those years back. And if ever a space summed mum up it’s the ground floor with its tables groaning with art books and supplies surrounded by supersized Hockneys and choral music filling the rafters. Or I’ll play the Oscar Peterson plays Cole Porter CD she got me one Christmas, or I’ll listen to Bach’s concerto for two violins which takes me back to a childhood full of Suzuki violin lessons and group performances. I’ll flick through her sketchbook that sits open on the windowsill in our living room. Other times I’ll bake her speciality – a Victoria sponge.

When the memories fade

Because the thing is, my memory of her has faded. I can’t with any certainty hear her voice anymore. Her image lies flat on photos, and I sometimes wish I’d kept her last voicemail. I think I remember it – a question about Saskia’s birthday present, was she buying her the Elsa doll or was Louise.

I love having her paintings in my office, the photo of her with the children on Bournemouth beach six months before she died is a joy, the kids remembering that afternoon with fondness.

It’s important that she remain part of all our lives, she shaped me after all. I miss her and I need to not be afraid to embrace this altered reality rather than push it to one side. Learn to go with it, to bend like a willow tree and recognise that these feelings will come, that they will feel intense, and then they’ll settle. But above all, to know that it’s ok to embrace this sadness, to recognise it, acknowledge it.

I wonder sometimes if the fact that she died before we moved up here plays its part but maybe I’d feel that way wherever I was. We all have our special set of circumstances that make our loss and grief unique, my loss is mine and while I share that loss with my family, her friends – my experience, my feelings are mine.

Grief: one messy, knotted skein of wool

I do think that her death, followed so quickly by grandma’s and then dad’s meant that my grief was one big messy, knotted skein of wool. Every time I tried to pull on the mum thread, I’d just get overwhelmed with the enormity of what happened in 2015. I needed to find a way to separate these three people but I couldn’t, no matter how much mum dominated thoughts.

And while deliberately going to a place – physical or otherwise – to connect with her might sound mawkish, why would you deliberately make yourself sad? It soothes and comforts me and sometimes – like this morning – her face popping into my head is the kick up the backside I need.

I’d woken up in my usual foggy state and took a cup of tea back to bed thinking I’ll swerve Writers Hour as I counted and identified my various middle-aged aches and pains – oh the blocked nose and sore throat is back but the sciatica seems to have eased. But then Stevie Wonder’s ‘If you really loved me’ comes on the radio and I’m transported back to our kitchen in Bath. Me mum and Matthew singing and swaying as it plays on the CD Player sitting on top of the piano. I think it was a Christmas Day and I smile, picturing mum’s eye roll and tut at me sitting in bed. It’s the kick up the backside I need, and I head for the shower, make Writers Hour and write this.

The thing is, those early days of grief when I could still hear her voice, still feel her hand on my shoulder were excruciatingly painful. When unexpectedly seeing her handwriting on a card was a punch to the stomach. A visceral loss I couldn’t escape, bringing ugly emotions I didn’t know what to do with, I felt like I was going mad.

How I feel her loss has changed, the acute pain and physical loss has lessened, and that should be and is a good thing. But the loss is still there and there are times, like now, where I feel like I need to acknowledge them.