Again with the pain

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.