What they don't tell you about grief

In an article in The Daily Life this week, author Kerri Sackville writes about how her life, and her grief, have changed since the death of her sister some years ago. Specifically, she writes about the physical things that remain after a person has died - their belongings and their clothes, for example - and how these can provide a connection to a loved one long after they've been gone. The realisation that "this is it"; that "there will never be anything else" apart from those few remaining miscellanies is one that's hard to get your head around, she says. And she's right. I have very few possessions that belonged to Max. I have lots that were going to be his, but none that he was expressly connected with - no clothes that he wore, no toys that he played with. As a result, I've tried desperately to collect memories of him in other ways, such as through this blog, where I can record all of the things he has touched in me emotionally in lieu of anything he touched physically in this world.

Sackville writes about the clothes she inherited from her sister. In the beginning, wearing those clothes made her feel closer to her sister, as if they were impregnated with her very essence. However she also describes how the passage of time and the ongoing experience of grief have changed her relationship with her sister's things. The clothes themselves are no longer imbued with the kind of emotional significance they once were, she says. "I don’t feel her presence in her possessions anymore; that sense has dissipated over the years. And it’s sad. I feel like she’s slipping away and I need something to grasp onto."

Lots of people have been telling me lately that time heals; that I will go on to have a happy life despite the tragedy of Max's death. On some levels I don't doubt the probability of this. I know that the feelings we have grow and change over time and I know from other losses I have experienced in my life that we are, somehow, able to move on and find meaning again in new, and sometimes unexpected ways. Though this is supposed to be a comforting thought and intended to reassure me that the pain won't always feel this unbearable, it is in many ways a more distressing thought than imagining the pain will never end. Sackville sums up this paradox so well:

'They don’t tell you that life going on is its own source of pain. They don’t tell you that it’s confusing and guilt-inducing to see yourself moving forward with your life - taking on new projects, experiencing new adventures, making new friends, and assimilating clothes into your wardrobe - when the person you love is gone'

The thought of accepting that I can have a happy and fulfilling life without my son, and with the knowledge that everything I love can be taken away in an instant, is really objectionable to me some days at the moment. I feel a responsibility to actively grieve for Max, because my grief is simultaneously my love for him. That's what makes it hurt so much. On other days, however, I feel conversely that I owe it to him to go on and make the days I have left on earth count for something because he did not get a chance to. There seems to be no middle ground between these two conflicting thoughts and I oscillate continuously from one to the other, meaning on any given day the people who love me don't know if they're going to get hopeful or hopeless Janelle. It's exhausting.

Meanwhile, I search continuously for connections to Max and am disbelieving in the same way Sackville is that I have to make do with the scanty ones we were able to form in the few hours we had together.