I wasn’t sure whether to write this post yet or not.  I’m still undecided to be honest, but I’m going to write it anyway and if you’re reading it then I guess it means I’ll be pressing the ‘Publish’ button when I’m done writing.

My heart actually, physically hurts.  It’s edges are jagged, like it’s been roughly and brutally ripped out and then shoved carelessly back into my chest again.  Except that it’s not been put back in quite the right place, like a piece of jigsaw that doesn’t fit properly and has been forced into a space that can’t accommodate it.

That’s what happens you see.  When someone dies I mean.  When someone dies, it feels like nothing can ever really be the same again.  That the world is somehow immeasurably altered.

Except that it’s not.  The world is exactly the same, just with a gap where someone was, where someone should be, that simply isn’t there any more.

I got the news this morning.  My Mum came to visit us yesterday, and we enjoyed a day in the sunshine with the girls despite being followed by the cloud of knowledge that my Nana had had another fall and had broken her other hip and needed an operation.  She was in theatre most of Sunday, and in recovery yesterday, but neither me nor Mum could shake the unease we felt that something was wrong.

Nana passed away peacefully this morning.

I cried on the phone with my Mum when she told me.  I cried on the phone to my partner when I told him.  And then, because I’m a mum too and that’s just what we do, I wiped away my mascara, put on my sunglasses and went to collect Lola from nursery.  As I walked through town I watched everyone around me, carrying on with their busy lives – talking on the phone, laughing with friends, eating sandwiches on a bench, scurrying back to work…  No-one had any idea that a life had just ended.  An important life.  I felt like everyone should know.  And yet at the same time I wanted it to be private, to process it on my own, to reflect quietly on the enormity of the waves that have just flowed through my world.

When I got to the nursery, Lola came running over to me all excited, just like she always is, eager to tell me all about her morning.  I picked her up, gave her the biggest squeeze I could muster, and gazed at her as she chatted animatedly to me.  I wanted to absorb every expression, every gesture, every single thing that makes her who she is.

In my work I’ve helped several people through their grief and out the other side.  And yet never really expected it to happen to me quite so soon.  My  Grandad passed away three years ago, and I hadn’t seen Nana since then.  Even though she had dementia and wasn’t really ‘in there’ any more – the light that made her my Nana had gone from her eyes – she was in good health and I just sort of expected her to be there forever really.  Naïve I know.  I’m trying to take comfort from the fact that they are together again, wherever they are.

So once again I find myself reminded that life really can take you by surprise, and that it is so, so important to make sure you do all the things you want to do, and be the you that you want to be.

I think that’s all I can manage at the moment.  This post has been written through a waterfall of tears splashing down onto the keyboard.  Once I’ve organised my thoughts and figured out my feelings a bit more I’m sure I’ll be posting again.

I’ll finish with this poem, which was read at my Grandad’s funeral:

Do not stand at my grave and weep

Do not stand at my grave and weep,

I am not there; I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow,

I am the diamond glints on snow,

I am the sun on ripened grain,

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning’s hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circling flight.

I am the soft starlight at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,

I am not there; I did not die.

 

Comment for: Grief