Grief before death

I remember Chris' death as though it were yesterday, yet it's been over five years. The moment is etched vividly in my mind. When I think back on it now, I never know what my reaction will be. There are times I feel it's a nightmare; other times I feel as if my broken heart will break all over again. I never know. That's the thing with grief. People compare it to the the yolk of an egg, staying the same size while the white, symbolising life, grows around it. Perhaps it is a ball in a glass of water, and with each year the glass gets bigger and the water volume is increased. For me, my grief is a ninja. I never know when or how, but when it attacks, it often leaves me feeling battered and bloody. Sometimes quiet tears fall. Other times I cry gulping for air. I just never know.

The thing is, we don't know how we are going to feel until we feel it. I found the moments, even the months, after Chris' death were almost robotic. It is as if I am watching myself from outside myself. I remember little from those first couple of weeks other than weeping from the moment I entered the village hall for his memorial service and crying throughout, silently, the tears never stopping. Some pieces of music I chose (with Chris) to play during the service are still impossible for me to hear without crying. I remember how brave his adult children were, with Olly reading a poem he wrote and Lucy playing one of Chris' favourite pieces, Satie's Gymnopédie No. 1, on the keyboard. The celebrant had to read the poem I wrote, as I wasn't able to do it myself. I was too broken.

I thought, when we first learned that Chris' cancer had returned after three years of remission, that it would make grief easier. We knew the prognosis was terminal, we knew we were living on borrowed time. Surely, grief would be easier because it was anticipated. But that wasn't the case at all. The concept versus the reality are two very separate things.

From the moment Chris was initially diagnosed, I was on high alert. I've come now to realise, through counselling, that living with impending death often results in PTSD. It certainly did in me. And from the moment of the diagnosis until...well, until now really...I haven't had a good night's sleep. When Chris was alive, I was like a new mother listening for her baby's breathing. But the difference was that I knew the breathing I longed to hear was going to stop at some point.

One conversation I will always remember as we came closer to the moment of parting - Chris always told me that he didn't "get" poetry. In fact, with music, the lyrics were always a byproduct of the melody for him. But, in those last months, I shared poems with him that suddenly made sense to him. Poems like e.e. cummings' "i carry your heart" suddenly felt personal. One evening he was talking about how he was coming to terms with death and my British Lit major mind immediately knew what I wanted to read to him. I got out my beautiful, fragile book of John Keats' poetry and turned to "Ode to a Nightingale" and I read him these lines:

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

          I have been half in love with easeful Death,

Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

          To take into the air my quiet breath;

        Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

          To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

        While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

                        In such an ecstasy!

        Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—

                   To thy high requiem become a sod.

I looked at Chris and he sat there, beaming, his eyes glistening with tears. "That's it," he exclaimed, "that's it. Now, I feel as if I will welcome death when it comes. I want to stop hurting. Wow, I understand that so clearly now."

Knowing ahead of time that Chris was going to die didn't make losing him any easier. But it did mean that I experienced grief before death. I thought I was smart enough to figure out how to escape the torments of grief, but it wasn't to be. Losing a spouse or partner is a difficult and very individual grief. Every widow and widower is going to feel it differently, but there are common threads that run through every bout of grief, every experience of loss.

More than five years after losing my beloved, there are days it is as raw as it was in the days immediately following Chris' death. But the thing is, for every sad memory, I find myself naturally drifting to those memories that make me smile or even laugh out loud. I have discovered that, despite the words of the wedding vows, death does not part us, not really. The love we feel for someone with whom we grew, shared a life, had intimate moments, raised children - that love, like the life energy in all of us - cannot die. Conversations in the months and years after death naturally include stories or anecdotes of our beloveds' time with us. I've always said, as long as we remember those who have left us, they are never truly gone.

What I want to do with this blog is share my experiences. I know this will be helpful to me, but more, I want it to allow other widows and widowers to know that we are not alone in our grief. I want to hear from you. I am going to ask some friends to share their feelings here, too. By sharing our own feelings and memories and coping mechanisms, perhaps we can make each journey with grief a little easier.

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The image featured is one Chris captured of the view beyond our kitchen/diner window in Aultbea. You can see Loch Ewe and the Isle of Ewe belong the hedge. The slightly spindly lilac bush is just outside the window - he treasured the beauty of the flowers during the spring. On nights he couldn't sleep, this is where I would find him. I call this photograph "His Favourite Place."