Things about grief that I didn’t learn in a book.

Grief is a strange thing. All of a sudden, a person is no longer there leaving a gaping person-shaped hole in your life. And you have to come to terms with it somehow, but MAN it’s a tricky process. Our thoughts and behaviours may be a little bit strange, and you may feel like a total weirdo, but the responses you have are almost certainly an entirely rational response to you adjusting and trying to make sense of your new shitty situation. Here are some of my examples.

1: IT WILL BE ALL CONSUMING (at first)
When someone first dies it’s all-consuming, every moment of the day is peppered with thoughts about your lost one. The first thought you have in the morning and the last thought before you go to sleep. (If you actually manage to sleep)

‘Why did he die? ‘It’s so unfair’ ‘He had so much more to give’ ‘Oh, he’d look good in those shoes’ ‘I’m not a sister anymore’ ‘He’d have been a great Dad’ ‘l could have done more’ “I hope he knows how much I love him’ ‘God he was amazing’ ‘God he was a right bellend’

And loads of others including the zingers
‘no one understands’ ‘I was closer to him than anyone else was’ ‘I’m feeling this more than anyone else is.’
(newsflash — bereavement can make you extremely selfish and protective of your grief, I may write on this at another point because it’s a part of it that we need to accept, you may not always like yourself)

Then at some point, you’ll feel a sense of happiness or joy over something and OMG the guilt you feel is immense. You brain shouts at you. ‘I should never feel happy again because he’s not here’.

If you ever have a negative thought about them (see the bellend comment above), you feel guilty and disloyal. But just because someone died, it doesn’t erase all of their negative qualities, and it’s disingenuous to turn someone into a saint just because they died.

I’m not going to lie, the feeling guilty part sucks, and you just have to trudge through. The good thing is that in most cases this aspect of grief doesn’t last forever. You will accept that you deserve to be happy and have fun and you will also come to terms that your loved one was a flawed human being and probably was a bellend at some point in their life. We all are….

2: YOU WILL DO WEIRD SHIT
I was a little sister, I had one brother. On the day that I reached 12513 days old (Gee died when he was 12512 days old), I felt very uncomfortable, sad, lost, anxious, spun out, I couldn’t breathe. It was almost like I was right back at day one of my loss. The little sister was now older than her big brother would ever be, and it felt oh so fucking wrong.
Now, I’m aware that my behaviour caused that feeling. Why on earth would I sit and work that out? Of course, it was going to upset me! I don’t really know the answer to that, other than it felt like the right thing to do at the time and I was trying to make sense of something that doesn’t make sense. We may feel more comfortable living in pain and wear it as some sort of grief jacket from time to time.

3: YOU WILL HAVE NEW RITUALS
If I see or hear a date, my brain will instantly say (silently, it’d be a bit awkward if I said it out loud) ‘oh Gee was alive then’, or ‘Gee had died by then’ or, “Gee hadn’t been born yet’. “Gee had been dead for five years by then’ It doesn’t mean I’ll get upset, it’s literally how my brain processes dates now. This is my normal reference point now, I don’t think it’ll change, and I’m ok with that.

4: MELTDOWNS CAN BE UNEXPECTED
I remember having a half hour meltdown once because my brother would never get to see how Breaking Bad finished. I felt such a feeling of unfairness at that, and I also felt completely ridiculous for feeling that way. Even now, I still feel a twinge when I listen to an album that I know he’d love. No matter how ridiculous you feel like you are being, it’s a valid feeling. That sense of loss and upset is genuine and it’s very real to you. Meltdowns are a very important part of the grieving process, they are cleansing and cathartic no matter how ridiculous you feel like you are being.

Every bereavement is unique, I’d experiences loss of other family members before, but Gee’s death smacked me around the face in a very different way. I’d felt sadness and loss before but when my sibling died a part of me didn’t make sense anymore.

The instances I’ve mentioned are my personal way of trying to make sense of life with my brother as a sole surviving sibling. I’m a big believer in talking about the people who are no longer with us, not turning them into saints and also talking about the weird and sometimes funny ways that grief presents itself generally.

PERSONAL BELIEF CLAXON — ‘WE SHOULD TALK ABOUT DEATH AND DYING MORE.’

If it makes you feel uncomfortable, you should probably try and investigate why, because almost every one of us will experience loss at some point. Perhaps if we were a little more open about it, we wouldn’t feel like you were are total weirdos when we are going through it. Talking about death isn’t going to upset a bereaved person, they are already upfuckingset. So being honest and open actually helps.
I’ve learnt (and am still learning) to live with my Gee shaped hole, it will always be there, digging in my sides. But he was a bit of a pain in the arse when he was alive, so he’s sure going to carry on that way in death. And guess what, he’s bloody worth it. ❤