Traversing the bumps...

Last month I visited my in-laws for the first time since B’s death. It took a while to arrange due to concerns over covid, me getting around to it and having to arrange flights (believe it or not, I had never flown on my own prior to this), and, if I’m honest, me being in a place where I could face visiting on my own. Not that I didn’t want to see them, just that I knew it would be hard visiting without B. The last of those big firsts!

And, of course, it was lovely to see everybody; to meet my great-niece for the first time and to see my great-nephew growing up; to catch up with everyone and chat about B; to look at and mull over family photographs; and to go out for a lovely meal together. And I was grateful to the friend that made my journey a whole lot easier by meeting me from the airport, and then taking me back there a few days later. But, of course, for me, the whole trip was about B and it was hard being there without him as it just reinforced his absence. How could it not? Saying that, it was easier than I thought it might be, but since then, I seem to have regressed. One of those bumps along the road, but sometimes it’s hard.

There’s still something about happy occasions reinforcing my grief for what I’ve lost, for emphasising B’s absence, though. Another example happened last week. A friend and I had a day trip to Southend. We went on The Waverley, now the only sea-going paddle steamer in the world, which had particular resonance for me as it is something that featured in B’s life in his younger days. We had a lovely day. As well as the boat trip itself, we walked along the longest pier in the country, twice, had the most amazing fish and chips, and enjoyed ourselves in an amusement arcade. It was a good day, until walking down the road home I just wanted to shout out to the world “It should have been B with me”. Bang! The day probably wouldn’t have been any better with him, but it would have been different, and I suddenly missed that difference and felt his absence, oh so acutely... Another bump!

All this culminated with me going to church on Sunday, as usual, but being a gibbering wreck by the end! Church is still the worst place if I’m a bit ‘below par’, particularly when there are some emotional triggers. I have to remind myself, though, that the vulnerability of grief is actually a strength, despite the fact that it doesn’t usually feel like that! Fortunately, I have some good, understanding and empathic friends, for whom I’m very thankful!

So, at the moment, having come from a place where I thought I was doing quite well (well, we all know pride comes before a fall!) and the space around my grief was getting bigger, it’s all feeling that much harder at the moment. I know that this will pass and that I just have to go with the flow, to accept and face my sadness – there’s no point trying to block it out as I know it will only come back to bite me - but, if I’m honest it’s hard. What makes it harder is the burden I now place on myself as I wonder if people are judging me – ‘shouldn’t she be doing better than this by now?’, ‘why can’t she just pull herself together?’ As I’ve written several times before, I know that it shouldn’t matter what others think, and I know that I am actually doing alright, but I become more aware that our culture doesn’t ‘do’ grief. All this doesn’t mean I can’t be happy, that I can’t enjoy myself, or that I can’t function in the every-day, because I can, and despite the fact that I once thought I might not be happy ever again. But, and it’s a big but, just because I am happy or not talking about B or I’m not crying, doesn’t mean I’m “over it”. There will always be a gap in my life, it’s just that slowly, perhaps despite appearances (!), I’m learning to live with it and to traverse the bumps when they present themselves, which, in the end, is what that Jester, grief, is all about.