Year: 2018
“I’m getting there!” – really?
“I’m getting there!” – really?
Do you use the phrase “I’m getting there”?
Really?
Here’s another video to challenge you!
If we’re getting there, how will we know when we are ‘there’?
What will we see, hear and feel when we are there?
And even if you knew what you will see, hear and feel to know that you have arrived ‘there’… There will be more shit to deal with once more!
Getting enough help and support is a great way for coping with bereavement. Sometimes the best way is to get self-help for dealing with grief after losing a loved one is understanding more about the strange stories we tell ourselves about the way our mind works and living truly in the now!
How to support someone that is grieving
How to support someone that is grieving
If we know someone that is grieving and want to offer them support, what can we say?
You may feel that the person you know is doing really well and want to offer them encouragement, however just saying to someone they are doing really well is not ‘seeing’ them.
As a human being we all want to be ‘seen’, we all want to be noticed and understood, sometimes when we grieving it can feel extremely lonely. If someone just says, “hey, you are doing really well”, it can feel like we’re not really being noticed, we can feel like “Oh no I’m not, I am struggling enormously and feel terrible”.
Acknowledging how a grieving person feels can help them feel ‘seen’, noticed, and understood and can help them with their grief and loss, particularly coping with grief very soon after the death. Rather than just say our grieving friend is doing well, if we ‘see’ them and notice their pain also this can help them through their difficult times.
Try saying something like, “I see how much you are struggling, I see how much pain you are in, I see how difficult this is for you and yet at the same time I see how well you are doing”, this time our grieving friend has the support and encouragement that they are doing well and we have also noticed the difficulties they are going through – they may now feel ‘seen’ , more understood and better supported.
Good luck…
Bad things and good things… The balance of life?
Bad things and good things… The balance of life?
Sometimes we get a run of bad things happen to us, perhaps in a single week, month, year or even years joined together.
It seems to me that sometimes we may be able to bring balance to our lives if we write down and take note of all the good things that happen also?
Of course, this won’t take the negative away nor make those things less painful, but I just wonder… Would we feel like our life had more balance?
So quickly the darkness descends
So quickly the darkness descends
And so quickly the darkness descends.
Like those parachute games the children play, flapping them up and down by little handles on the corners, sometimes you’re completely wrapped up in the darkness of the parachute, sometimes it floats high above you, but it’s always there.
And when it descends it descends with a weight and velocity that completely surrounds you.
It engulfs you. It surrounds you so completely that it becomes all that there is.
All there is is darkness.
Beautiful fading pebbles
Beautiful fading pebbles
As with so many of these posts I don’t really know where this one is going. I know there is something inside which needs saying, but I’m not sure exactly what it is or how to say it… So the only thing to do is to start and see where it goes.
As many of you may know Claire absolutely loved the ocean, it was her dream to live by the sea but she died three days after we found a new house just 15 min walk from the beach, she never got to live in it or realise her dream… She is so very nearly made it!
She was also a bit naughty whenever she went to the beach, she used to pick up a pebble, take it home, write on the date and location, then place the pebble in a ‘little shrine to the sea’ in our garden in Hertfordshire. She would very often sit by the shrine, looking at all the pebbles she had collected and remembering the happy times she had spent by the sea. I guess it was her way of anchoring those happy memories, all she had to do was look upon the pebbles and she was back at her favourite beaches around the UK.
When I moved I carefully picked up all of those pebbles and brought them down to Dorset. They’ve been in various places around the garden here but I’ve just built a little planter in the garden as an edible garden and those pebbles have found their way into it.
But those pebbles are beginning to fade.
The writing on them is now almost illegible.
Claire’s touch upon those pebbles is dissipating.
I have a terrible memory, I don’t remember visiting virtually any of the places where she picked up those pebbles… But I do remember her writing on them.
There’s something about the writing fading which seems beautiful. I was tempted to overwrite them to keep the places and dates on them, but that wouldn’t have been Claire’s writing, it would have been mine and so it seemed wrong.
The writing on the pebbles fading is beautiful and yet full of contradictions.
The writing fades but the memories don’t.
The writing fades but Claire’s touch on my life doesn’t.
The writing fades but Claire’s memory doesn’t.
Those beautiful fading pebbles have a meaning, but for now they are keeping it to themselves…
The single most important and powerful moment of my life, ever
The single most important and powerful moment of my life, ever
I’ve just written a response to someone that left a comment on one of my old blog posts, their partner died within a 36 hour period, no time to say goodbye or make final plans.
I was just passing comment that Claire also died in a short period of time, 9 hours +/-.
The last time I ever saw Claire I was just arriving home from work, she was leaving the house with her sister on her way up to the hospital because she felt so terrible.
She looked awful.
We sat on the wall together outside our house whilst her sister brought the car round, I genuinely thought she just had a bit of a stomach bug, would go to hospital, they would give her some tablets and she’d be home in a couple of hours.
I kissed her goodbye and said that I would see her when they got home.
I never saw her again.
Bizarrely, the enormity of that single moment has only just really hit me.
A single moment in time, a split-second, a single glance, a whispered word, a knowing look and yet probably the single most important and powerful moment of my life, ever.
And at that moment, I didn’t know it.
Of course I’m fully aware that this life is temporary and that anyone can die at any moment, but I’m just wondering how different life would be if we treated EVERY communication as the last communication we would ever have.
Think about the very last thing you said to someone you love. Now imagine never seeing that person again or ever having the opportunity to say anything more.
You can’t say sorry.
You can’t tell them you love them.
You can’t correct anything that was wrong.
You can do absolutely nothing and have to accept absolutely everything.
How many moments are there which could be exactly like that?
It’s a powerful thought isn’t it?
Pain – thank you for your service
Pain – thank you for your service
It’s weird, nowadays I usually have a clear idea of what I’m going to talk about when I sit down to write, it’s been some four years since I felt the need to write for the sake of writing, for the therapy of it rather than because I had something specific to say.
Let’s see where this goes.
I went to a funeral yesterday of a friend, Aleks who died aged 36.
I was incredibly struck by the beauty of the service and celebration after.
She was bright and bubbly. The service was bright and bubbly.
She was quirky and loved life. The service and celebration afterwards was equally as quirky and a celebration of her love of life.
She loved cocktails. I saw many people celebrating her love of cocktails at the celebration after the service also!
I thought I’d come a long way since Claire died and indeed I know I have but yesterday was a reminder that what happened on 17 April 2013 will always be with me.
I guess it served as yet another reminder that this healing process through grief is not necessarily about finding ways to make the pain go away, rather, it’s about finding ways to live with the pain. I genuinely don’t believe we can make that pain go away, that pain is always with us, always there, hiding in the background yet not in a dark and threatening sense.
The pain is there to serve as a reminder of all that we have lost and in that sense the pain is good.
I don’t believe we should shy away from feeling that pain, if it’s there, embrace it, welcome it, acknowledge it for the transient emotion that it is, thank it for its service and then let it go again until the next time.
As there will always be a next time.
The pain will always resurface and when it does we repeat the same process.
This is the new normal, this is the new life, this is the way things are now and probably will always be.
So today, I’m rejoicing in the knowledge that the intense love that Claire and I shared is still there through the pain that I experienced yesterday.
Love and pain at the same time… Another lesson in learning to let go and just experience what is…
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This post is dedicated to Aleks Morris. 15th of January 1982 – 28th of February 2018 and to her family and friends.
Aleks, You made me feel so welcome in my new house when I moved to Dorset 4 years ago. You shared laughter, wine and chocolate with us on many occasions, often quite loudly… I think I never told you I could hear you howling with laughter from over the road with my windows shut!
Thank you Aleks for all you brought to my life in the few years I’ve known you.
Farewell my friend.