My story

 A while ago, our Church Secretary, a reader of The Grieving Jester, asked if I would tell my story at my church and a couple of Sundays ago I did so. I was very nervous, and there had been several questions going around my head: will people really want to hear this stuff? Am I going to bore them or upset them? Is it appropriate? Am I going to be able to do this? But, one of the reasons I started my blog in the first place was to talk about this stuff and get it into the open, so how could I refuse? Well, actually it was fine and I received several appreciative comments afterwards. I did wonder whether I should post it here, it feels quite exposing, but in for a penny… In essence, it’s a summary of all, or most of, what I’ve written over the last three plus years, but also referencing my faith. So, here it is:

“For those that don’t know me, I have been coming to Bloomsbury (my church) since I started my nursing training, and I spent the majority of my career working in the field of end-of-life care. Bloomsbury is also where my husband, B, and I met and were married.

B and I were perhaps not an obvious couple! He was 27 years older than me, an astrophysicist, very intelligent, and stoic. I was a bright but not nearly as brainy, sensitive, nurse. I’m sure there were people who thought we were not doing the right thing in getting married, particularly because of the age gap, but as B said in his wedding speech, ‘we’re doing it anyway!’. And we did and we were happily married for 24 years, for which I am immensely grateful!

As most of you will know, B died in January 2021, having been diagnosed with myeloma. Most of his illness, as well as his death, happened during the covid pandemic and there were many things in B’s last year, and the beginning of my bereavement, that would have been very different if that hadn’t have been the case, but it was as it was. 

B knew his diagnosis and the eventual outcome, as did I, and from December 2020 I could see that he was in the final weeks of his life. Support was at a minimum because of covid and I became stressed and exhausted as I became nurse as well as wife, but I wondered how much worse it was for all those without my experience, who didn’t know what was needed, who didn’t know who to contact, or what to ask for… I am so grateful that I was able to care for him at home, and that he was able to die at home. He never said it but I knew that he was concerned about being carried off to hospital and dying on his own, as so many others did during the pandemic.

I knew B was dying and, of course, I knew that I would miss him but nothing prepared me for the enormity of it all. B’s death completely blew apart my world! I hadn’t anticipated the physical effects of grief – the ache in my chest that eventually moved down to my stomach; the nausea; the brain fog: months of disrupted sleep. My emotional resilience disappeared. B’s death touched everything in my life: shopping, cooking, eating, being in bed, watching television, visiting friends, coming to Bloomsbury; everything! I just tried to keep putting one foot in front of the other when there was this huge void in my life. 

After B died, I started searching, yearning for him. He knew he was dying, had he left me a note? Hunting for the sweater that he was wearing in one of the last pictures I had of him – where was it? Printing all the photos I had of him! Strangely, I kept wanting signs from B. My brain said “he’s dead, you know he’s dead, he no longer exists, and any way you don’t believe in signs from the grave”, yet my heart still wanted them! The presence of B’s absence loomed in everything I thought and did. It was reassuring to learn that research has shown that the brain can’t function when everything contradicts all the neural pathways it’s developed over years of living with a partner. And, that having uncontrollable intrusive thoughts is normal: B walked along here; B mended that; B would have liked that picture… They still happen and now I accept them and mostly smile, but they were devastating initially. 

In the darkest times, I sat on the bedroom floor hugging B’s cardigan, bawling my eyes out, wishing I was dead, thinking “I could just take some paracetamol…”. I wouldn’t have, and besides I’m hopeless at swallowing tablets, but what was the point of life without B? But I had promised him that I’d be alright and so I determined to grieve well, with the hope that at some point I would be able to live my life to the full again. So, each day I would allow myself to feel, and to accept, the awful pain. 

I joined various Face Book groups to find people going through the same experience as me – “was what I was feeling normal?” - but I soon left these. I read of those who were still crying every day after three or more years and I thought, “please, please don’t let that be me”. I didn’t want to feel like that, it was awful, and yet how could I not, the pain was the expression of our love. 

After a couple of months, I started writing, and I probably wouldn’t have done this if I hadn’t been stuck at home, alone, during covid, but this was a real gift. I started writing a journal and a blog and these helped me to express and share my feelings, and to be honest about my grief. Each day, though, I would also try to write down things that I was grateful for, even if it was just that I’d managed to have a shower, or that the sky was blue.

For the first two years my faith made little difference. It helped me with regard to all the rites and rituals surrounding B’s death, but it didn’t help me with the huge sorrow of his loss. During the third year, though, questions started to hit more forcefully: What’s the purpose of life? What do I think about life after death? What’s the point of believing? Do I even believe in God? I hadn’t expected this! I remember sitting in a Communion service feeling so desolate as I no longer knew what I believed, wondering if my faith had deserted me – I couldn’t bear another huge loss! B’s death, though, has taught me to live with dichotomies and uncertainties. I may not fully know what I believe, but my faith persists and I have become much more aware of those thin spaces of God’s presence and love, and if anything, my faith is stronger now - God is the ground of my being. 

Church, though, was one of the hardest places to be. Initially, it was just the sense of place. Bloomsbury was a second home for us, so much of our life together was entwined here, but B was no longer by my side. I would sit here and see how he would position his hands next to me on the pew… But the worship was also hard: ‘Oh death, where is your sting?’ Well, let me tell you, it was sitting inside of me and it hurt! We would sing ‘Nothing is lost to the love of God’, but I just wanted to rail, “but B is lost to me”! This wasn’t a question of doubt, just that my heart couldn’t cope with the pain. How do you bear the unbearable? Hymns, prayers, sermons could all be difficult and reduce me to tears and I got used to feeling vulnerable… 

I am so grateful, though, for those who just accepted my pain and persisted in being there, not trying to make me feel better, but walking with me in the darkness; for all those that talk about B – it helps, it doesn’t make things worse; for all those that helped with the practical stuff – all the admin when one’s brain is the least capable; for all those that helped me to just keep going – going for a walk, visiting a gallery, going to a concert, having me to stay, keeping in touch day after day, week after week - showing me that life was still worth living. I’ve learnt that it’s not time that heals but experience; the learning to live in a different world in a different way. 

So, you’ll be pleased to hear that I don’t cry every day, though tears can still appear. I’m a different person now, still me, but different! B is, and always will be, a part of me, and the joy of that, and perhaps the sorrow, will always be with me. I miss him, but I’m now used to living without him. It has been an awful time but, accepting that there was no choice in B’s death, I wouldn’t change it. My grief has helped me reach a place where I can broken-heartedly celebrate our life together, and be grateful for all we shared. Would I do it all again? Yes, of course! As C.S. Lewis said, ‘The pain now is part of the happiness then. That’s the deal.’ 

One caveat to end, though: this is my story, my grief and no-one else’s. Although grief is an almost universal experience, each person’s grief is different and there are no rights or wrongs, but the only way through grief is to grieve!”

As I said in my story, and it did feel really hard to write it and say it, I am now used to living without B. It doesn’t mean The Jester has gone away, but I have learnt to live with him. I am thankful that I have reached a place where I know that B is a part of me and where I can be thankful for all we shared and celebrate it, despite any sadness that may appear. Perhaps that sadness will completely dissolve over time…

So, this really is my last post! Thank you for being so patient and for putting up with the now several ‘last posts’! Thank you for your support over the last three and a half years. Several people, though, have suggested that I should turn my blog into a book. Reading back, which I can now do without the pain, it doesn’t seem that profound, but if I think others might find it useful it’s perhaps worth doing. If it happens, I will let you know… 

So, dear readers, thank you for being there when I needed you, Jackie