Futility and hope

Since my last blog post, I continued to feel like ‘my old self’ for three days. I ask myself what I actually mean by that, and I suppose it’s that I felt more like I did before B died, I felt content, perhaps like a non-grieving Jackie. On the Sunday, though, my grief hit me full in the face again! I was at church and all was going well, I sang in the choir for the first time, which I felt good about (this is progress, I thought), but then a couple of small things upset me and my grief came welling back up. Of course, I was hoping the happy state would remain but, obviously, I still miss B. The background sadness is still there, rearing its head every so often. Anyway, the good thing is that the effect of the anniversary of B’s death has, at last, worn off It is difficult to explain what the difference is, but I guess I am now able to feel happy as well as sad, again, as opposed to just morose. I did have a small epiphany, though, as it occurred to me that sad days aren’t necessarily bad days (perhaps this is obvious, but I hadn’t thought about it in these terms before!). I have had some terrible days, previously, but I now realise that it’s about acknowledging that sad days / times are okay and not, necessarily, bad. It is important to grieve, even though I don’t like it! 

There is a phrase that sometimes pops up at church: ‘nothing is lost to the love of God’. I know this should be comforting and help to take away my sense of futility but, when I hear it, I just want to yell, ‘that may be so, but B’s lost to me’. I do believe that B is with God (whatever that means), and I do believe that nothing is lost to God, but knowing this doesn’t help all those feelings of loss that well up inside me (perhaps it should, but it doesn’t!). It just makes me wonder about the purpose of life. This doesn’t mean that I have lost my faith, I haven’t, it’s just that it’s that bit harder to figure it all out at the moment. I think it’s all to do with my sense of purpose, or lack of it.

I now try to organise myself and make sure that I have plenty of things in the diary to keep me occupied – I’m getting used to going to exhibitions and the cinema on my own, and even having the occasional  solitary meal out, and I now find that I am able to enjoy them rather than only think ‘B should be here’. It’s strange, though, how my diary can be full (in fact, I’m actually doing more now than I did before B became ill, and pre-pandemic), and yet somehow it all feels rather pointless without B around. It makes me question whether I am just doing all these things to fill in time, to give me a focus other than my grief. Perhaps, trying to be hopeful, doing all these things will help me to move away from that empty feeling of life without B, but I’m not sure how successful it is at the moment. I have been thinking about taking up some sort of voluntary work but, so far, I haven’t found anything that really appeals to me and, if I’m honest, my motivation to actually find something hasn’t been that strong. In fact, what I would really like to do is something at the hospice, but I’m not sure I’m ready for that. I notice, though, that I can now separate my thoughts about death and dying from my feelings about B and his death, and this pleases me as death and dying have made up so much of my professional life. My grief is about missing B and all that we had together, rather than his death per se. So, time will tell…

Since B’s death, I have been drinking more coffee (I find it interesting how some apparently unrelated things have changed). The other day I was in a café, drinking a cappuccino - light and frothy on top, with the flavoursome, darker liquid coffee underneath - when it came to me that this is quite a good analogy for how I am at the moment. I recognise that from the outside I probably (?) appear bubblier, beginning to return to normal (whatever that is!). The thing is though, underneath it all, just like the cappuccino, the darker part remains and it’s that element that continues to flavour my life. It may not be so obvious that I am grieving now, apart from the occasional blip, but to say I’m still heartbroken remains an understatement. On my good days, I remain hopeful that I won’t always feel like this. On my sad days, I wonder how I can possibly be happy, if that means leaving B behind, but I let my grief out and hope that this will eventually help to lighten it.