The end of grief? Four and a half years

Well, I really didn’t expect to be here again, but in May I had a weekend away with friends I went to school with and one of those friends mentioned that she felt my blog was incomplete / unfinished, as she felt my readers would want to know how I am now. To be fair, I understood where she was coming from – it is different now! So, apologies for leading you up the garden path yet again, but third time lucky, this will be my final post!

I think I can safely say that I now feel a definite shift in how I am. I am lighter in mood and enjoying life again. I no longer have that feeling of meaninglessness and the pain of losing B has definitely faded. Generally, I just accept that he is no longer here, and I think about our marriage with gratitude and joy. The pain occasionally rears its head but when it does it is usually short-lived. Sometimes it’s regrets that pop up, and I don’t know why my brain still throws these out, but I try not to dwell on them as I know they are pointless. But a ‘biggy’ can be his writing. As well as other places, I come across it on the labels of our filing cabinet, when I need to retrieve a particular piece of information, and sometimes, though not every time, it can just ‘hit’ me as it is so real, a reminder that B was here, real and solid, and part of my every-day life. The labels will stay. I like to see them! It’s just that sometimes they give me a jolt.  

There are weird occasions, though, that still pop up from time to time. I was on holiday, recently, wandering around a lovely garden and I suddenly thought ‘B is missing this’ and I felt sad, but I felt sad for him rather than me. And I have felt this a couple of times recently – feeling sad for him, rather than myself! I know it’s not logical, he’s dead, he’s not missing anything, but it still happened! 

I notice in myself ways I have changed. I enjoy more time just being still and enjoying the day – I have become content with my own company; I spend more time in silence; I am more mindful, and try to enjoy the present moment; I notice and appreciate nature more, especially trees. I write, not all the time, but I still write in my journal, which I never did before. But the strange thing is that in some ways I have become more like B, for example, I drink more coffee – B was the coffee drinker. I used to drink it once a week, if that, now I have one or two cups a day! My sleep patterns have changed. Now I sometimes get distracted as I am going to bed, and start looking at various books, etc. and then realise an hour has passed - I would nag B when he did this as I just wanted to go to bed! Alternatively, I may go to bed at what I used to think was a reasonable time but I read for longer, thus delaying when I go to sleep and therefore getting up later (there is also some guilt attached to this as I was always the ’lark’, always wanting to go to sleep earlier rather than later, unlike B, the ‘owl’). I am also more protective of my boundaries – grief has taught me that looking after myself isn’t necessarily selfish and I am better at saying ‘no’. I’m sure some of all this is just coincidence and some is the effect of grief, but sometimes I wonder how much my unconscious has tried to model just a little part of B in myself. Who knows?!

I still like to talk about B, after all he was a very big part of my life, but I do know that I now have a different life, which I need to make the most of. I want to live (this was impossible to imagine at the beginning!) and I know that that is what B would want me to do. When I look back to those times of extreme darkness four plus years ago, when all I wanted to do was die, this does seem like a minor miracle. Although I held a tiny candle of hope, I really couldn’t see how the darkness would ever end, but here I am! I think facing my grief and my mantra of ‘do it any way’ served me well. For me, facing up to my loss and working through it has enabled me to reach where I am now. Just hoping that the pain would go away by itself wouldn’t have worked. Saying all this, when the Jester occasionally reappears and the sadness invades again, it can sometimes feel as though I am lying to myself (and you), and that all I’ve said thus far is untrue. The difference is that these days I bounce back quite quickly.

Thinking about all of this, I have been pondering about grief: What is it? When does it end? Does it end? The pain has mostly gone, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t miss B. He is still ‘with’ me i.e. I carry (the memories of?) him with me, and I can’t imagine him not being a part of me, even now. My relationship with him hasn’t ended, it is just very different! Does that sound weird? Maybe, but I think it’s that those continuing bonds have now taken shape and are a part of me. For a long time, I had a lot of trouble trying to understand this concept in anything but a theoretical way: What were continuing bonds? What form would they take, if indeed they did eventually show up? But they have materialised naturally. I can still honestly say that I haven’t had a day where B hasn’t featured somewhere in my thoughts at some point. It may only be very brief, but he remains a part of my life even now. So, my pain has mostly gone. I know B is dead and that he is not coming back. I have learnt to live my life in a different way and I have changed. Every so often I miss him, sometimes more than others, but my memories tend to bring joy rather than sadness. Will I always miss him? Only time will tell. But I now know that I will never forget him, even if the details get fuzzier. I am grateful for all he gave me. So, for me, grieving is about reaching this point of a new equilibrium where I can live my different life; a healing around the pain of grief whilst not forgetting, but carrying B with me as I move forward into my future.

I recently came across this piece by Mary Oliver:

        "Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.

        It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift."

To be clear, I am not saying that B’s death was a gift. It wasn’t, we had no choice. Now, though, I can say that the grief, and all the darkness that came with it over the last four and a half years, has been a kind of gift. The Jester has had me lying on the floor sobbing my heart out, has prodded and poked me, walked with me when nobody else knew what it felt like to be me, but I now know all this was necessary. I have grieved, I have learnt about myself, and I have reached a place where I can celebrate all we had together. And, hard as it is, that has to be a gift! I would have hated to spend the rest of my life in the doldrums, not living it the way I should. Not all gifts come with fancy gift wrapping; some come dressed as Jesters!

So, dear readers, I hope you haven’t been wondering about me, but if you have, I’m content and living my life. It’s taken me four and a half years to reach this place but here I am. B would probably have wondered why it has taken me so long! 

        "The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain."
                                                                                                                                        Khalil Gibran