How to begin to talk about grief?
No need to panic. We should, of course, all be opening our hearts and sending love out to all those who are faced with the reality of death during this COVID-19 outbreak. No-one in the world will be able to escape some kind of impact, but that’s not what I want to talk about here, now.
But I do want to talk about grieving for a loss of life.
Let me start with some context when the life I was living 26 years ago, 200 miles away, was unrecognisably different. A friend had recently lost her sister and while I was unable to appreciate fully what she was going through, she seemed to take comfort from my support. On her recommendation, I found myself volunteering as a bereavement support worker for the hospice that had cared for her sister.
Training was intense, on top of the unsocial hours and shift work in my ‘day job’. But I got through it and was allowed to support those recently bereaved.
Although quarter of a century ago, something of that training has particularly stayed in mind and periodically finds a new relevance.
It came to me first when I faced my divorce. My training had helped me realise that my marriage was simply not one I could healthily stay in. I headed to London, where life began again. And then love began again with a wonderful, unexpected new soul love. It was complicated, but our connection was so powerful we persevered in finding ways to make things work. And then he was killed in an accident and the world we’d been creating fell apart.
The grief journeyed directly to my door. Broke in and broke me.
I was quite some time in that wilderness, but 20 years later life is once more unrecognisable. A new and even richer soul love makes my world all the warmer. A community of kind, creative, wonderful people I call friends. And work – my purpose work as a healer and medium, helping and supporting people to be their best self – really taking off. It was joyful and fulfilling.
Until a few short weeks ago. Once again, grief came to the door.
No-one that I know had died, but what I remember so vividly from training is that grief is an inevitable and wholly understandable response to the loss of things we value. I recall the tears as a treasured possession was taken from me during one exercise – the pen my friend had gifted me in thanks for my support. I feel those tears as I write. I remember the profound wrench that accompanied my taking of someone’s late father’s watch. These may have appeared simple objects, but it was a powerful demonstration of grieving and loss.
Right now in this pandemic outbreak, to some greater or lesser degree, we are all experiencing grief. Grief is response to a loss. Although we’re all sharing the loss, it’ll be a unique, completely individual experience. How we journey through grief in our own way and our own time was another powerful take-out from training. Just as when a loved one dies, everyone that has loved and lost that person will have had their own relationship with them that will be reflected in their distinctive journey through grief.
Our grief is for the loss of the life we had been living until a few short weeks ago. For the livelihoods we had worked hard to be creating. For the hopes and dreams we’d been investing in. For the loss of health, for the loss of the connection to loved ones, for the loss of liberty, unable to go out and do what we want, when we want. The loss of plans, events, gatherings.
The loss of life as we knew it. And for which we grieve.
The first stage of grief is denial. If you look around, you will certainly see and have seen people who have seemed unwilling to grasp the reality of this situation. Perhaps consider that they are in the first stage of grief, denial. That might help us all be less judgemental and a little more compassionate and kind.
And because each of us had our own unique set of circumstances, hopes, dreams, aspirations, connections, your grief will be your own.
Take your journey at your pace and do not expect more of yourself than you are ready for. Be kind. Be gentle. Be loving. Begin with yourself. It enables you to give from your heart, without running your own battery dry. Once you know how to be loving and kind to yourself, you will be able to pour that out of you and see it have an impact on those around you. And you will be able to do that consistently, connected to a loving self. Compassion and connection to self and for self is not self-ish!
While we need to respect the individuality of our differing journeys, we should equally be looking out for and supporting each other through what we are sharing – fast-changing and uncertain times.
Some will be more equipped to embrace the change, while others will struggle to move out of the darkness in which they find themselves. While we can’t take someone else’s place on their journey, we can walk alongside them, sometimes unseen, sometimes more obviously and communally. Let’s stay in the kindness and steer clear of expectation and judgement. It’s heartening to see all the wonderful community efforts doing just that.
As we journey through our own and collective grief, let’s work with gentleness, kindness and love in our own unique way. Not just away from this challenge we all face, but more quickly and easily towards something hopeful and new.
Love you.