Grief is such a complicated thing.
You can’t control it. You can’t anticipate it and you certainly can’t plan it. You can’t sit down, have tissues at the ready and say, “today’s the day I’ll grieve her”. It doesn’t work like that. You don’t get to decide. You don’t even get a warning.
Saturday, May 27th, the night before I walked a 5km in her memory, was the first time I felt the true trauma that is grief. It left me heaving and gasping, choking on sobs as my shoulders shuddered and my hands clamped onto my throat to silence myself. Tears cascaded down my cheeks, soiling my top, my blankets and my pillow. I rocked back and forth, clutching her photo. I couldn’t even see her smile for my sight was stolen by the tears.
It hurt. So much more than watching her take her last breath, than seeing her come home in a coffin, than standing in the mortuary and witnessing everyone say their goodbyes. This hurt more than saying the last words at her funeral and it definitely hurt more than seeing her being laid to rest.
For back then I was numbed and sheltered by shock. Disbelief protected me from agony. Yet now that was fading and this was raw. It was real and it was the moment that reality crashed back into me. The moment the blissful detachment and disillusion of “it can’t be real” evaporated from where they shrouded my heart and left me defenceless.
So grief struck me as I laid alone in bed. It began its first assault, sniped me with the memory of her laugh before it slashed me with the realisation that I’d never hear it again and finally it bombed me with the terror of one day knowing I’ll forget that sound.
Grief coiled around me, a physical being. Its arms curled over my shoulders so its fingers could claw into my throat. It tugged sob after sob from my vocal cords, taunted me as it made me whisper “I need my mama. Come back, please”.
Grief dragged the pain from where I’d locked it away. It flowed around my heart so it created a vat of agony in my chest. It spread. A poison in its own right, slithering through my veins and leaving aches in its path. It caused my fingers to grip my cheeks, covering my mouth as my nails bit into my skin. Half-crescent moon marks littered my skin, I pulled at my own hair, pressed my face into a pillow, did anything to stop it. I needed it to stop. It hurt. Why now? I wasn’t ready, I couldn’t face this yet. So why was it attacking me this night? Maybe it’s because I wasn’t ready that it hit. The night before doing an event that was in the memory of those who’d passed. Perhaps grief came that night because without it I would have been too afraid to go to the Walk the next day.
As I cried that night, everything I’d pent up seeped out. It wasn’t just sorrow or pain that came forward but anger. I’m angry she’s gone. That she’s left us, me. I’m angry that whatever God there is above us decided to steal her away. She’s my mum. She wasn’t meant to go so soon. She was supposed to stay here, to grow old, be happy with dad, watch me and my brother get older. She was supposed to be the one I called first about a proposal, to be there the day I pick a white dress. She was meant to see it all, to be able to hold her first grandchild, to dote and spoil them. She wasn’t supposed to go. So why had she to leave?
Grief is not there to just hurt you, I know that. It’s there as a reminder of the times you had and to prove it was all real and that your love was so great that without them here to receive it, it transforms into an agony that is unbearable. Crying isn’t bad, it is necessary. Holding it in will only hurt you more. Yet it’s so hard for me to do.
Grief never leaves, but the pain will ease.
It does not mean that I’ll forget her, just that my love for her will overwhelm the pain of her loss. She is the source of my grief, but she is also the centre of my strength and I’ll never let her go even though she’d gone.
She’s my mother and there is no way I can get through the loss of her without heartache. The numb shell that encased me before is breaking and this new harsh reality is seeping free. It’ll hurt, there will be many more nights of tears and choked cries. I’ll never be really me again because a large part of my heart has left with her. But I’ll let this suffering make me stronger and I’ll learn to cry and accept that grief is not the bad guy.
I’ll love her forever,
I’ll miss her always,
I’ll remember her every day,
And I’ll grieve her every night.
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