Recently, I’ve come to realise that there are events in my life that I haven’t grieved or am grieving but haven’t realised. (Grieving my childlessness) It’s made me realise that actually, I’m not good at grief.
Grief is something that we will sadly all experience but nobody teaches us how to do it. It’s one of those taboos. It’s something secret, hidden and unspoken about. In some ways, grieving the death of a loved one is straightforward. Straightforward in the sense that there is a formal process that we follow. We go to the funeral, pay our respects and start life again without their presence.
What is not straightforward are all of the emotions that we experience and how we talk about these emotions. I would argue strongly that we don’t talk about emotions enough. It’s something that makes us feel uncomfortable so we avoid it. Having lost many loved ones, I’ve experienced a wide range of emotions.
My experience
When my maternal grandmother died, I let out what I can only describe as a primal, animal yowl of pain. It came from deep inside me. A place that I never knew existed. I cried a lot. I thought back to the last conversation we had. I think my gran knew that it was our last. I miss her still and think of her often.
My first experience of grief was when my maternal grandfather died when I was 8. It was December 21st and my school Christmas party. The day went as school days normally did – apart from the party. It was after I got home from school that day, that my Mum told me he had died. He had been in hospital. I don’t remember too much about him, but I do remember the sound of his “smoker’s cough.” He was a smoker but also worked in coal mines so it is likely that he had emphysema. I didn’t go to the funeral, my family felt that I was too young. I think it was right. One vivid memory I do have of after he died was seeing a man who looked like him walking down the street, it freaked me out. Seeing “his chair” empty at my Gran’s house was also a bit strange but life continued.
My second experience of grief was when my Dad’s sister died, just over 18 months later. We were visiting his younger sister and eating dinner when the phone rang. I remember hearing my Aunt exclaim “Oh God, no!” I remember that we were having baked Alaska for dessert. I remember driving to my grandparents house to break the terrible news. It’s the only time in my life that I’ve ever seen my Dad cry. My Dad is a very calm person who gives hugs freely and has always told my brother and I that he loves us, but this was different. Again, I did not go to the funeral as I was 9.
My paternal grandfather died at the age of 80 on December 15th. My parents were Christmas shopping, my Aunt, brother and I were putting up the Christmas decorations when my Granny phoned. I was 14 and this was the first funeral I went to. Sitting in the funeral limousine was awful, it felt very exposing. Like I was sitting in a goldfish bowl. My Papa was cremated. The service itself felt like being on a conveyor belt – in the door at the back, out the door at the front. It was so impersonal.
I was working when I got the phone call that my Mum’s younger sister had died. I finished my shift. She’d collapsed at home and never regained consciousness. She was cremated but had a funeral mass before the cremation. It felt a little less impersonal. The crematorium is quite a bleak place in a fairly isolated location that doesn’t help any. You’d think by now, I’d have got the hang of the whole grieving thing but it’s still a work in progress.
My Mum’s older sister, my godmother, died after a long battle with cancer. We knew that the cancer had returned and that the chemotherapy was having a more detrimental impact on my Aunt than the cancer itself but it was still a huge shock when she died. Even one of the nurses on the ward was shocked, that the patient who had been chatting and laughing on her previous shift could’ve passed just a day later. It was a bank holiday weekend so the funeral was over a week after my Aunt passed. That’s a long time in Scotland. It was an uncomfortable limbo. Things like registering her death and getting the necessary documentation to arrange and hold the funeral was all delayed. I miss her a lot and I wish I’d got to see her more often before she died. I do however have countless funny memories to keep me in comfort.
Saying it out loud is also difficult. While its still in your head, it still feels unreal. You can stay in denial. Once it’s said. It’s out there in the world and is real. My Uncle, passed away unexpectedly and I was the one who had to break the news to my parents. I wish now that I’d first managed my reaction before breaking the news but instead, I was reacting as I told them. I regret that. He was my Dad’s brother in law who had been widowed so many years before. He was a good man and my favourite Uncle.
Loss
The grief I find most challenging is when the loss is less obvious. I’m thinking of the loss of my last relationship. (Depression, my ex and me) It was absolutely the right decision for me to make to end the relationship and I don’t regret it but I now realise that I just carried on. What I would now see as me being in denial. I didn’t grieve for the dreams and goals that we had. The plans for the house we’d live in, the children we’d have and the dogs we’d have. I feel sad that these things didn’t and won’t happen. I feel angry for the years that I invested in the relationship when our plans didn’t come to fruition. Now, I accept that it wasn’t meant to be and that I had to prioritize my own mental health.
Which brings me to my very recent realization that I am grieving for the children that I haven’t had. Realizing this is anxiety provoking, sad and depressing. I’m sad at not being a Mum, it’s depressing to be 40 hearing your biological clock ticking ever louder and worrying that I might have left it too late. I’m also mourning the children that I may have left it too late to have. Its so ironic that I’ve finally found a man with whom I’d love to have children with and I might not be able to.
Feelings
What I’ve learned is that not acknowledging or feeling my emotions, causes me problems. More so the uncomfortable emotions – sadness, anger, anxiety, resentment, guilt. So even though it might be strange to feel loss for my unborn children, I’m going to grieve for them. I’m going to feel sad that I haven’t had children, that I haven’t given my parents any grandchildren. I’m also going to feel hope. Hope that I will be able to conceive a child and gratitude. I am so grateful to have my partner in my life, he has brought me so much happiness.
I know this has been an epic blog, so thank you for reading it. My take away message is feel your feelings, they let us know what we need to pay attention to. It’s much easier with the positive feelings but so crucial for the uncomfortable feelings too. Also, talk about these feelings. It really does help. All feelings are okay, what we do about them makes a huge difference.
