The Grieving Jester

This last week or so has been a mixed bag and some bits have felt tough. I wondered whether I had been trying to distract myself too much, trying to put on a brave face, and thereby ignoring my pain. So perhaps I needed the bad sad days. There weren’t any obvious triggers, I just missed B, felt sad, and cried. The pain is still there! Perhaps, I was hoping that it had disappeared… After a while, though, things started to improve again and, on the whole, I felt rather happier. I was able to enjoy times with friends, going to a gallery, choir practice, the lovely Spring weather, even mowing the lawn (which was much needed). Sometimes, there doesn’t seem to be any reason as to why I should feel particularly sad, whereas at other times something just hits me and triggers my sorrow. A thought might ping into my mind, or I hear someone say something, or sometimes it’s a situation I find myself in, though it doesn’t help when I am tired. It feels a bit like how I imagine Alice felt when she f...

I have been reflecting a lot this week (and it’s only Wednesday!), and I have come to the conclusion that I have, probably, been trying to deceive myself… On Sunday morning I woke up feeling sad, not for any particular reason, I just felt sad. Perhaps, a more honest way of putting it is that I felt sadder than what is, now, just the usual background sadness and, perhaps, I noticed it more as I have had some less sad days recently. It didn’t occur to me not to go to church, which it might have done previously, so I went along as usual. The Gospel reading was about the raising of Lazarus, and the sermon was about emotions, what happens when we hit the wall and reach our emotional capacity, and the communal owning of grief and holding of pain. Our minister also mentioned that, as well as crying for the loss of his friend, Lazarus, Jesus might also have been crying for himself, which I found helpful, as I do sometimes think this regarding myself (I feel bad / guilty when I see all the te...

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 b...

Last week, I had what I call my first ‘non-sighting’ of B. I was half-expecting that something like this would happen at some point and, lo and behold, I was coming out of a choir practise and for a split second I thought I saw B – there he was with his slightly wavy, white hair, in his fawn jumper, slightly turned away from me. I was just about to go over to him so that we could go home together (although him being at choir practise was an illogicality) when I realised that, of course, it couldn’t be him. I had thought that something like this would upset me but, although it was a bit of a shock, somehow it was actually a comfort as, for a moment, it reminded me of the physical him… I have just come back from spending some time with my family. While I was with them, I felt a bit more like my old self. It felt as though I was back on an even keel again, which is somewhat of a relief. I wondered why it seems so much easier with them than at home, and realised that there are several fa...

 I was hoping that I would be on more of an even keel this past week, but it seems that The Jester has other plans. At times it has felt easier, but then I can feel myself becoming engulfed in grief again and, as is often the case, for no obvious reason. I have had some good days when I’ve thought that I’ve reached a state of equilibrium, but then the next day my grief is bashing me around the head again. I do check myself to make sure I’m not depressed, and I’m not, but I just feel sad and bereft, missing B. Valentine’s Day passed uneventfully and, on the whole, it didn’t bother me. I did have a couple of pangs when I saw various couples on the tube with red roses but I was able to think how nice it was for them to have each other. Generally, B & I weren’t great ones for celebrating Valentine’s day. We would exchange cards and sometimes B would buy me flowers or chocolates, but we didn’t usually go out for a special evening, feeling everywhere would be crowded and prices possi...

B occasionally used to say to me that I was a glass half-empty person, and I would reply that I was a realist! In fact, we could both be glass half-empty or glass half-full people depending on the context, and I would sometimes tease him, as well. Anyway, one of the things that popped up on my Facebook page last week was a free seven-day programme on positivity. It’s fascinating what seems to randomly appear! Anyway, I thought I would give it a go as, over the past week or so, it has felt as though I have been stuck in the doldrums. Nothing too dramatic, but I just seem to have gone backwards rather than forwards after that pesky anniversary. Perhaps, I thought, the course might help me feel more positive and, anyway, what was there to lose? So, I joined up and it was interesting and there were some helpful tips but, of course, I soon realised that it wasn’t going to make me feel less sad. I think it was just wishful thinking on my part and, if I’m honest, I didn’t expect it to, but it...

It’s me again, my author’s grief. Believe it or not, I am now over a year old. My author had almost got used to me being around, was almost starting to see me as a friend, so I thought it was time to shake things up a bit. I think she’s already told you that she has found me difficult since the anniversary of B’s death. She wasn’t expecting that, but I had to remind her that I am still here and that I’m going to be around for a while yet. I think she thought that the anniversary might be a magical turning point, but I don’t work like that. She has to do the work; she has to live with me and she has to interact with me for however long it takes. I notice that she has been wondering if she could control me a bit better (she’s always been a bit of a control freak!), if she could perhaps put her sad feelings in a box and just let them out when she wanted to, maybe just in the shower in the morning, or perhaps just on Mondays or, even better, just on some significant dates. Obviously, she d...