Month: Oct 2023

There is a list of the stages of grief. A list created by humans to formulate a process that through observations many have gone through. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance are listed. It’s not a one-size fits all, as emotions are complex and though we may think we are done, something will arise that requires a revisiting to part of a natural process that will, in all likelihood, vary from person to person.

I offer here my own experiences and how subsequent perceptions have given insight into my own grieving process.

Denial was short and transient. I had taken Gavin to his home on the Monday after he had dog sat for the weekend whilst we visited my family and attended the committal of my stillborn nephew. Gavin wanted to go home though he had had the best nights sleep for ages in his childhood room and old bed. For the next few days he didn’t respond to texts and that was not unusual, but come Friday evening my husband felt the need to go round and make sure he was OK. We have a spare key and that was the beginning. Dave phoned a neighbour, and our daughter to come and sit with me. He then phoned to break the news that he had found Gavin dead on his bedroom floor and was now having to deal with emergency services and the Police. That is when denial hits. It can’t be true, yet no way could he or Gavin play that sort of game. To wake the next morning to that thought already expressed here, that Gavin was nolonger in my world was a seeing and feeling that his body was gone. A beginning of acceptance. A ‘gain’ with the pain.

What comes next is simply hurting, a deep ache in tbe heart, a stab in the chest. That pain kept his loss a reality, an undeniable fact. That pain was ever present in all the formalities that had to be done with his passing. Registering his death, nor a committal service could happen until his autopsy. Yet we made arrangements, told who we could, his place of work, banks, family and friends, few though they were. A putting aside our pains to deal with essentials and processes. Waves that ebbed and flowed depending on where we felt we were at or not.

The anger would float on those waves like flotsam, waiting to be beached and taken notice of. That will be my next blog. When? When I have the courage to write.

Waking up on the morning after Gavin died was to wake with the thought that I ‘lived in a world without him’. That was overwhelmingly sad. Tears welled, and nothing could stop that. I came to see that nothing should stop that expression of sadness. That it’s OK to be seen to be grieving. Other members of my family would have to deal with their own emotions their way. I was invited to embrace all that losing someone near and dear would offer. To do otherwise would be to deny what being human in nature really is. Yes, I write this with hindsight and insights gifted through the subsequent years yet even now, almost 5 years on, that initial pain of heart can be as sharp as a blade that pierces the skin. I embrace that, to sob or gently weep is to allow that feeling to have a place, a space to be accepted and loved as part of who I am now. Its OK to feel a sadness and to express that. Its not there to make you feel ‘less than’ its there to show love and kindness to the one who is sad. By allowing my feelings to show, to express that sorrow became a space where others could do what they needed in their moments. In the days and weeks following, whether clearing out his home and possessions. Organising his affairs and a funeral, or dealing with hospital investigations and a coroner there is a putting aside of emotion. Yet always an invitation to return to that in quiet moments. Some can allow and many can not, because it hurts and that is not pleasant to feel. It is to be avoided, perhaps simply to survive one can’t allow that pain to the surface as many other pains will ask to be felt too.