Archive: November 2020

I took this photo on November 4^th, the morning after Steve’s funeral. I was out walking before sunrise, on my own with my thoughts.

As the inky blackness of the night sky gradually changed and lightened, and the orange tint of sunrise spread across the horizon, there was something so reassuring about the rising of the sun. The symbolism of light overcoming darkness and a new day beginning seemed poignant and pertinent as I walked over the frosty fields, trying to sense how I felt.

Before Steve died, I had worried about what it would be like, in the days after his death. We’d known for some months that he had terminal cancer, and I had been occasionally allowing myself to try and think ahead to what life would be like when he eventually succumbed to it.

I was afraid that, when he was dead, I would wake up thinking for a split second that he was still alive, and that I would have to remember each day that he had died, but this hasn’t happened. It seems that while I’m asleep, my subconscious doesn’t forget that he’s gone, so I don’t have to go through that re-remembering. I really hope that this continues. It’s a relief not to have to consciously remind myself of what has happened.

Walking the dog before the sun comes up has become something of a habit in this new, bereaved existence. I am waking really, really early, often 3.30 or 4am. This is a new thing. No matter how late I’ve gone to bed, nor how tired I am, whether I’ve had a drink the night before or not, I wake up with a start, and that’s it, my day has begun. I’ve learned to get up and get out and walk, early, before the rest of the world gets up.

I’m blessed to live in a semi-rural location, so there are fields and woods and footpaths all around. Within five minutes of the house, I can be walking along the canal or across the golf course, with just birdsong for company, and Juno, our rescue dog (who belongs to my son but who has become my surprised but delighted early morning walking companion).

We walk for miles, returning home as others, who keep more normal hours, are setting off for their morning walks. This suits me absolutely fine; I’ve found I don’t want to get chatting to anyone at the moment. If we do meet another early riser, smiling and nodding seems to be enough, early morning people seem quite undemanding of social niceties.

I am finding that walking moves me forward in more than just a physical way. Emptying my mind and just keeping putting one foot in front of another as we wander different routes each day creates space for the jumble of feelings and emotions to order themselves. I noticed this, that first day after we buried Steve’s body. I realised that I needed to keep giving myself this time on my own, moving my body but letting my mind rearrange itself as it needs. As I walk, I feel lighter, less dense, less contracted into painful and hard-edged grief.

Sometimes, tears stream down my face, as the deep sadness of being without him wells up and overwhelms my thoughts, but as quickly as it comes, that sadness passes, and other thoughts and memories take its place. I just let them all come and go, like bubbles drifting in the air and then vanishing. I have learned to do this. It’s instinctive and yet unfamiliar to me, but I know it’s the right thing to do, to just allow feelings to drift in and out of my mind.

This solitude is something I need, almost crave, while at the same time I need company, and distraction. I’m trying to ensure I get adequate of both, although I haven’t got the balance right yet. And I don’t want to be far away from home, I feel I need the sense of safety and security of familiar things around me, to be safely tucked away from other people, to be able to pick up and put down things as I feel inclined, not to have to talk to anyone if I don’t want to. It’s an effort to make myself go anywhere at the moment, but walking in the early morning feels like a good habit to form. Silence and birdsong and the sound of water are strong medicine. And watching the sun come up on another day reminds me that every day I am alive is a gift.

A personal story of grief

There is a beautiful little book by Baptist minister Richard Littledale, called Postcards from the Land of Grief which my friend Clare mentioned to me a few weeks after Steve died.

I recognise that description, with a jolt of familiarity – ‘the land of grief’. This is where I find myself, a new arrival in an unfamiliar place, where the language, the sounds and the sights and the scenery are all unknown. (Probably the scents and the flavours and tastes are all new too, but thanks to Covid, I can’t yet detect them.)

And in this new landscape, this new land, I am on my own. Despite the constant envelopment and surrounding of my family and friends, despite all the love and support and kindness I am having poured over me and into me, somehow, on a very elemental level, I am elsewhere. Alone.

The person I love – my partner, my soulmate, my lover, my best friend, my husband – the man who walked through life alongside me, isn’t here. He’s gone somewhere else completely, without me, and he’s not coming back.

His going is what catapulted me here into this new land. And this is where I now have to make my home forever. This thought is too huge to allow myself to think for more than a second or two. I feel unanchored and unsafe, and unsure of who I am or how I am, or how I will be. I’m adrift in a strange sea, without any idea where I am, or where I’m going.

And yet, instinctively, I know that to settle here and to find myself, to find the person I will become, I need to articulate my experience. I need to write. I need to share this with other people, because there may be something, just one small thing that I describe, that resonates with someone else, someone who is also wandering, lost and alone, through an unknown landscape of bereavement.

With the blessing of my fellow directors of the GFG, I am going to start a series of personal blog posts, which will appear here on the GFG Blog. I’m going to write about my journey in this alien new world, chronicling my thoughts and experiences as I work out who I now am.

I’m going to write, not just for my own benefit, but in the hope that I might maybe help others catch something to hold onto.

I’m going to write because that’s all I can do, describe and articulate being in this strange new world. Perhaps, in doing so, I can help others who will find themselves here one day. Perhaps something in my writing might be a way-marker that hints that another has passed this way ahead.

The series will be called ‘Absolute Beginner’, because that is exactly what I am. Despite all my knowledge of the theory of grief and bereavement, this is the start of my own personal journey, my learning of grieving though living it. I am an absolute beginner at this.

And the subtitle will be ‘A personal story of grief’, because that is exactly what it will be. This is my story, my personal experience, and I am hugely grateful to be able to share it on this platform.

I hope that when the words come, they will be good ones.