Many hundreds of people walk through our lives each day but only those who love us, and whom we love, and those that care for us, and those for whom we care leave their footprints engraved on our heart.
What does it feel like many people ask. Sometimes it feels so very much like fear. That same fluttering in the stomach I get while standing at the top of a very tall structure and looking down below, the same agitation and that same restlessness. Sometimes there is that dry mouth because the swallowing wont stop. Sometimes it makes me feel so detached and so alone, as if there is an invisible barrier between me and the world. The words people speak, the things they say just doesn’t seem to register. Or maybe it’s just hard to want to understand, it can be so uninteresting. I fear the moments when I am alone.
Some days a little voice inside me shouts out from the depths and tries to assure me that it really isn’t that much of a big deal. After all, people come and go, so what is different about death? I was happy before I met Charley. It happens to everyone and people move on. As I contemplate, I am left ashamed listening to what my mind says. On the other hand it does speak sense. But then something happens, or I hear something, or see a picture, or visit a place and memories flood back like a gushing river. Every single particle of ‘rationality’, ‘logic’ and ‘common sense’ is swept away by tears of grief. It is then you are left sitting alone on that park bench with nothing but darkness and cold surrounding you. Just so alone.
This is the park bench Charley and I used to sit on. I took this picture of the snow covered park while on one of my midnight walks – 2nd Dec 2010, 01.55am.
*****
Over the years, many people have tried to explain ‘grief’ to me using all sorts of analogies. While at the hospice training one day, we were discussing this matter and the coordinator explained a few different models of grief. I’ll explain one of them here:
This first circle (left) represents you, me, him, her and everyone in their normal ‘grief-free’ state. The greatest worry or problem we have to deal with is what pair of jeans to wear in the morning or what sandwich to buy at lunch. Life is okay with no major drama but being humans we still complain.
The flaming red and orange in the circle on the right is representative of grief. Grief felt after the ending of a long term relationship or the bereavement following the death of someone very dear. It is totally overwhelming and takes over us (the whole circle of ‘us’ is full of it).
Most people assume that over time the grief due to a bereavement or loss for example, will lessen and there may even come a stage when it completely disappears. In this ‘assumption’ we don’t really change as a person, it’s the grief which changes. After all, time is a great healer is it not?
In reality however, the grief doesn’t change. It is always there. We just grow around it, learning and developing ways to cope so that it hurts less and less each day. This is how I like to think of it. The human brain is an amazing thing. The way it can store, recall, sort and process information is just mind boggling. I think grief is like constantly playing music; it’s always there in the background but your mind learns to block it out. If you’ve ever sat in a classroom with a road just outside, you’ll initially hear the cars going past. But as the lesson progresses and you get stuck into your maths or English or whatever, you no longer hear the cars. You’ll only notice them when you look out the window and concentrate on them. Grief is the same. After some time, which may be a few hours, a few days, weeks, months or even years it becomes like music playing gently in the background.
*****
Tomorrow (18th Dec 2010) would have been her 21st birthday. On her 18th, standing in the freezing cold at the edge of the river Thames, we made so many plans and so many promises for the years to come. I remember holding a warm cup of coffee in my shaking hand and telling her, ‘Whatever you plan for your next big one, just make sure it’s somewhere warm. I’m giving you three years to think of something.’ But there wasn’t to be a 21st, there are just memories.
Though we all take trips to the city of memories, we have no choice but to come back because unfortunately they are only trips. In our remembrance of the dead, we can not forget the living. Today is the birthday of a lovely friend of mine; Rosaline Lifeo. May the Almighty grant you a long and healthy life. May it be like being on a ferris wheel, dominated with that indescribable feeling of limitless happiness and awe when you are the top. But when you are at a low may you have the strength, the faith and the belief that it will only be temporary.
Come to think of it, life isn’t that much different from a ferris wheel. The only difference being we buy the ticket for one and are given the ticket for the other. Otherwise, both the rides have their ups and down and regardless of what happens, they both go on.
*****
They make it look so easy, connecting with another human being. It’s like no-one told them that’s the hardest thing in the world. I’m left not with what she took from me but with what with she brought. Eyes that finally saw me for what I am. And this certainty that nothing, nothing is set in stone, not even darkness. – Dexter, Season 5, Episode 12.
We meet new people each and every day wherever we are. Some of them we stop to talk to. Others we go out of our way and make the effort to talk to. Connections are laid and a relationship is made. The hardest thing I think is maintaining those connections and keeping them living. In my remembrance of the dead I must not overlook those whose footprints are engraved so deeply on my heart that time shall never be able to erase them. In my remembrance of the dead I must not hurt those who give me a reason to live. In my remembrance of the dead I must never forget those who teach me how to keep going. I will not forget them. <3
(I hope you understand this person with no name, this one is for you and all those who I know are grieving or have grieved. I will not forget you)
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