Location, Location?
The other day, a friend gave me an article from The Guardian, written by a widow of 4 years, about the location of her grief. Kat Lister had initially located her grief on the bathroom floor as she heaved into the toilet, and later, at the bend in the river where she had scattered her husband’s ashes.
So I began thinking of my husband and son in turn.
Grief, Longing and Love
Did I locate my grief for my husband on my pillow where I would weep despairingly every night for maybe years? Or on the flat rocks beside the river near where we lived, a place we dreamed up retreats and workshops we never had time to run? Or the shed -“To you it’s a shed, to me it’ s a sanctuary” – which he built with a broken leg but never had time to enjoy because the brain tumour got him first?
I have written to my husband ever since he died, at first often, then and for a long while weekly and now when I need to. This is what I wrote the other day:
“My grief and my longing for you are inseparable and my longing is another form of my love. There is no place I am that my love, longing and grief are not.”
Sometimes those feelings come softly, sometimes sharply, sometimes – still – I am disbelieving and panicking, sometimes accepting. They can come in all colours of the rainbow. But always my heart is their dwelling place. And even as I write that, I can also say, it is as if those qualities are also located around me – in the air that I breathe, in how I see the world, and what it is that emanates from me. In other words, as I integrate this loss into my being, love, longing and grief are inseparable from who I have become.
How it was
My son died when my husband was already ill. There is 10 months between their departures. At the time I could barely conceive I might lose them both. People said, “how unfair”, “you must be so angry”, “losing a child is the worst thing”. I didn’t know. My husband had a seizure between my son’s death and his funeral; his tumour started growing back and he was in hospital for surgery a few weeks later; and again because he developed a post operative brain infection; and then for another month because he had a 3 hour seizure which left him disabled. When he came home, I cared for him 24/7 for 6 months until his death. Even writing about my son’s death my husband’s illness dominates. That’s how it was. So where do I locate my grief for my son? How?
To live or not to live
My darling, beautiful son was a heroin addict and had been for 5 or 6 years. He’d cleaned up (not for the first time), used again and died. Rewind 33 years to his birth: I knew. I didn’t know what I knew – I was young, inexperienced and unsupported – but I knew he was troubled, reluctant even, to be here. His life was a roller coaster ride of pain, hilarity, violence, sensitivity, anger, love, frustration, compassion and hurt. He was never content, never safe, never at peace: heroin, I think, gave him a false sense of those things he longed for and he chased it into his death. And as a mother? Show me a mother who has a sense of freedom to be happy, whilst knowing her child suffers. Sam had been doing well while my husband was ill -cleaning up, making amends, rebuilding relationships and he came out of 6 weeks of rehab clean. A few weeks later he was dead. He couldn’t keep hold of his best chance.
Capacity
I have asked myself the question, how would I have coped with the loss of my husband if my son was still alive and using? How would it have been to know he was sleeping rough (again), exposed to knife crime and violence, to have calls at any time of the day or night- he’s hungry and has no money, he’s in hospital, overdosed, he’s in a police cell for stealing or fighting – or to have no calls at all and not know if he was alive or dead? The truth is, I would probably have gone under. When Sam died, his suffering ended – the turmoil and dramas, the confusion and chaos, the fear and anxiety, all came to an end. And that included for me and I think for all of us who loved him. No, of course I don’t want him to have died, but I could not wish him in life and in pain.
And so the strange paradox is, that my son’s death gave me the capacity to grieve for my husband, when he died less than a year later. I don’t suppose that’s a sentence any mother would think it possible to write but there it is. My grief for my son is not just for his death, it is for his life. And I have to say, I grieve for the pain of the mother I was for too many years– unheard, blamed, lonely and desperate.
Making Peace
And yet now, located as I am on ‘my tree’, beside my friend the river, my wise old friend who keeps flowing down to the sea come what may, I can also bless, not only my son but his life. Because of him and how he lived his life, I learnt to love without conditions, to create personal boundaries and what it is to have authentic compassion and forgiveness (including for my own self). I learnt not only out of necessity but also by witnessing the generosity of his heart, a generosity forged not least through his own suffering. There are many, many people, still alive and kicking, who can bless him for the colour, depth and kindness he brought. It isn’t, after all, for me to judge his life.
Word Woman, Rosemerry Wahtoler Trommer – an American poet whose poems arrive daily in my in box (do check her out) – lost her son to suicide a couple of years ago. In a poem which arrived this morning, she expresses this sentiment, far better than I can:
…. your life still changes my life, your life still changes the world. It will never be finished, this love. It will never be finished this learning what it is to be born, to die, to live into ourselves, to choose love again and again. Through tears.
And so it is that I find both beloveds whom I have lost, located tenderly inside me now and I carry them with me as I, like the river, flow inevitably to that awaiting ocean.
With my love
Nickie
PS If your lives have been impacted by addiction – your own or a loved one’s – I hope you are not alone. I am absolutely no expert nor can I offer any advice, but if it would help you to be heard then do please write to me here, or book a cup of tea session with me.
NEWS
Cup of Tea sessions, with me, are a gentle way to come into heart to heart connection. Half an hour, online, by donation, over a cup of tea, a time in which I will listen to you with warmth, care, no judgement and no fixing. Here is what one person from overseas who has a cup of tea with me sometimes, says of our time together:
“A nice cup of tea it is! And so much more. What a blessing to have your support. Deep gratitude to you for being with me in such dark moments.”
My Wise Women Circle has begun! An in-person, rich tapestry, woven by 12 beautiful women (plus me) all with open hearts and a deep understanding of life. Thank you to everyone who trusted and entered the circle. If you live further afield, let me know if you’re interested in creating with me another circle, online.
Walking with Loss Together, the bereavement group in nature I am running alongside Emma Capper from the end of the month for 6 weeks, is now full with the waiting list open.
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Dear Nickie,
Reading your words – expressed so clearly and piercingly – of Sam’s death and your ‘knowing’ at his birth – touches me to the core. And the gifts of his life – even through suffering – of love and compassion which have changed your life and others too.
Thank you for sharing so deeply.
Dear Nickie
I’m reading this on my iPad… But if it were on paper it would be soaked through with my tears….
Thank you for your beautiful sharing.