The Grieving Jester

One of the things I have heard experts specialising in grief say is that grief has to be witnessed. One of the things I have found to be so helpful is sharing my experience with others. Fortunately, I haven’t had any friends who have expected me to be better than I am or who expect me to put on a brave face. There is also something especially helpful about sharing with others who are going through a similar thing, who understand and are willing to share. I guess it’s something about normalising grief. Well, one of the things I did to find others who were grieving was to join some groups on Facebook. I admit that I didn’t follow most of them for too long, as I found hearing about the loss of others just made me feel worse. It wasn’t the sharing about people’s experiences of grieving that was hard, but rather hearing about all the people who had lost ones and who were feeling miserable. I felt I couldn’t hear that whilst trying to move forward myself. Perhaps this is selfish, but I neede...

I had intended to write about bereavement poems and sayings, but that will have to wait until another post.  This week has been a shock! I had thought I was doing pretty well (even though I do say so myself), but this week has felt extreme. On Sunday I had a lovely day – a picnic with friends and then a treasure hunt, which was great fun – and on Monday I had a very enjoyable al fresco lunch with friends. And then, bang! On Monday evening, B’s death just hit me full force again. It almost felt as though I was back to square one. And it continued during the week. I went out for a lovely lunch with friends yesterday, thoroughly enjoyed it, but got in and felt bereft again, although not as bad as Monday.  On Monday evening I just cried and cried, whilst hugging a jumper of B’s. It hadn’t felt this bad for a while and, to make it worse, it didn’t pass as it often has. I got through a meeting on Tuesday night, but was so grateful when a friend rang afterwards to see how I was doing...

Now that I have had both of my covid vaccinations, I am getting out more. Last week, I spent a week with my family. I hadn’t seen them since February 2020, when B and I both went to celebrate my Dad’s birthday. It was a good week, yes, with some hard moments, but life felt like it was somewhat more normal. The counter-side to this, though, as life gets fuller and I get more used to being without B, is that it feels as though he is starting to slip away, and I don’t feel ready to let that happen yet, even though I know he would be pleased that I am getting on with my life. I guess it’s one of those big adjustments that just take time. One of the things that happened whilst I was away was the partial annular solar eclipse. As often with these things it was cloudy and so, not expecting to see it, I had actually forgotten about it. However, at about 11.10 am, wandering around a National Trust Garden, the clouds parted for a few minutes and I looked up and there it was, at pretty much maxim...

Now we are allowed to have people in our houses, I have had a couple of visitors. This has been good on several levels: I have had good company, which has been enjoyable; one visitor went away with some more of B’s things, that is some ties and a partly drunk bottle of Amaretto (I hate the stuff!), and it is good to know that they will be used; another has helped me move my spare beds back upstairs and bring the big armchair, that replaced them, downstairs; this second visitor also helped me dismantle a very large wardrobe, which would have been impossible for me to do on my own. On another level, though (and I know I’ve said this before!), it means another little piece of B has gone and the house is becoming less his. This seems to be a paradox of grief, the letting go whilst, at the same time, trying to hold onto B. Sometimes, I just feel so alone. I’m not lonely, I have friends and family I can talk or meet with, and I’m happy being in the house alone, but it’s just that I miss B ...