Being honest...

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Well, I did genuinely think that my previous post was going to be my last, but perhaps I should have learnt my lesson from the previous time when I thought that! 

I was feeling positive coming up to the third anniversary of B’s death, and it was much easier than I felt it might have been. Since then, though, I’ve had this feeling of melancholy just sitting on my shoulders. Nothing too bad, not raw like it used to be, although there have been a few tears. And I wasn’t really sure why I’ve been feeling like this. Perhaps, a reaction to the fact that three years have now gone by without him. You’ve heard it before, the disbelief, how can that possibly be possible? Three whole years! Perhaps, it’s coping with the fact that my grief is lessening and so some of what I’m feeling is guilt: how can I be rebuilding and living my life when he is not here? I know B would want me to be happy and yet there is still that weird feeling that it’s somehow not right to let go of the sadness. It is strange, as my head knows that isn’t the case! Or, perhaps, it’s because I had in my mind that it takes three years for a spouse to readjust after the death of their partner: shouldn’t I be doing better than this by now? Anyway, I thought, ‘Okay, just accept it and carry on, nobody needs to know that I’m still finding it hard after all this time’, but then I remembered the promise that I made to myself, to be honest. So here I am again! I didn’t want my last post to feel like a lie, although it wasn’t at the time…

And it’s not bad, it’s not like that horrible raw grief but, so far, I haven’t been able to pick myself up and get myself back to where I was before the anniversary. I keep asking myself if I am depressed, I know what that feels like, but no, I’m not depressed, I’m just sad. I still miss B! It’s not that I can’t be happy, I can have a great time with friends, but when I’m on my own the melancholy rears its head. A few times I’ve thought, ‘oh, good, I’m feeling brighter today’, but then the feeling has returned in the evening or reappeared the next day. Random thoughts still pop up in my head, e.g. ‘B would’ve been glad I did that’ or ‘B didn’t see those new flats that have been built’. I had come to accept these seemingly uncontrollable thoughts and just move on but at the moment they trigger that feeling of sadness again. Previously, I had been going to bed able to think with joy about the time we’d had together, but at the moment it is the presence of B’s absence that comes with me although, thankfully, not nearly as badly as it used to be.

Me being me, I typed ‘fourth year of grief’ into Google. I didn’t expect it to come up with anything – ‘it’s too long, I should be okay now!’ – but I was pleasantly (?) surprised. It’s so reassuring to know that what I’m experiencing is normal! You don’t get over it, you move forward and learn to live with it – I do know that! On the whole, though, I now don’t tell my friends how I’m feeling and I don’t think it shows on the outside now (though I could be wrong?), but the grief is still there and it’s not possible just to put it to one side. I wish it was! Yes, it is possible to divert my attention from it, but somehow that is different. Grief is a companion that you can distract yourself from, but that doesn’t mean it has gone away. The Jester is still by my side, probably having a little laugh at me and my ups and downs! My grief is slowly releasing, but I can’t kid myself that it isn’t there. I have to be honest, at least with myself. I do know, though, that despite all this that I am continuing to move forward and that B’s loss does get easier to live with. Perhaps, I just have to keep moving forward and be patient with myself…

And as I write this, I realise that I am actually feeling a bit brighter. So perhaps getting it ‘off my chest’ has helped, and perhaps honesty is always the best policy…

     “The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.”                                                 Elisabeth Kubler Ross


Comments

  1. Anonymous21 February 2024 at 15:10

    You do know that it’s okay to feel sad and cry sometimes. And to still miss him. And you should sometimes tell your friends how you are feeling. Grief as you know isn’t an illness that you can fully recover from having. What we have to do is learn to live with grief and accept that sometimes we will be sad and long for our lost loved ones. 3 years is not very long Jackie. You have accepted his death and recovered from the shock of it, but you will always miss him and have moments of great sadness. Don’t beat yourself up when this happens. It’s all a part of us adapting to a different way of living and learning. And the guilt…. I so get that, although it has lessened for me now, but I’ve had a lot more years in which to live with my loss. I have a partner and I’m happy with him, but there are still times I’m sad and I have a cry. Part of this crazy, bad, sad wonderful life we are lucky to have! So pick yourself up, stop beating yourself up. You are doing as expected. You are amazing and I’m lucky to have you as my little cousin. Xxxx

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