8 things I've learned in my 8 years of grieving.

There's plenty more, but we'll stick with the 8 for now!

Last Tuesday marked 8 years since our Mum died.

8 years of navigating this world without a mum. The day was hard, really fucking hard. Possibly the hardest anniversary I’ve dealt with in years. The previous 2-3 prior were relatively ‘okay’, so this came out of left field. Though, through my years of working in grief, I’ve learned not to give myself such a hard time if one year is different to the other. Just because I had 2-3 years of okayish anniversaries, didn’t mean that was me for life. I accept the ebb and flow of my grief without berating myself.

I didn’t write on The Grief Gang instagram a big, winding post about my mum like I have done on previous years (I suppose I’m doing that here now lol). I just let the day be. I’d landed from a flight from Dubai the evening before, so jet lag was probably doing it’s thing, but I woke up bodily exhausted. I took myself to the local park opposite my home and sat on a bench and just wept.

These were tears that I couldn’t control, but they didn’t feel like a typical cry. It was just happening. Streaming. Like my eyes were pissing! I didn’t try to stop them. These tears felt like they’d been locked away for months. Since the death of my friend Poppy, I have felt that the grief for my mum has become secondary. There has not been capacity to hold the two at the same time. Though I can’t think of one without thinking of the other, it’s been quite the vicious cycle.

As I sat on the bench, I felt transported back to that day in 2016. Yes, it was June, so it wasn’t far fetched that the weather was similar, but it carried a peculiar similar tone to the 25th of June 8 years ago. I was immediately 19 years old again, being told that her mum didn’t make it.

I am both a veteran and a newbie in grief. So, here are 8 things I’ve learned (and perhaps still learning) 8 years in. I am going to write these as if I am placed in front of 19 year old Amber and attempt to keep it somewhat chronological to the years.

1. Rage

Rage will be what gets you up and out of bed most mornings, for quite a while, I’d say even 3 years worth. It will be massively misplaced at times and fired at the wrong people, but it was in some ways a necessary evil. You’ll set your world alight and enjoy it burning until you don’t. You will look back on those years of anger with guilt, shame and embarrassment. But you will one day understand that it was the most familiar emotion you had in your locker. You will see one day that the majority of that rage was grief and gift yourself compassion and forgiveness. You are not your emotions.

2. Guilt

There’s nothing you could have done, darling. Those sleepless nights where guilt laid next to you in the bed do not serve you, but I understand why we had to live them. We had to pick away at every last detail and potential missed opportunity relentlessly to come to the place and understanding that there was nothing we could have done. Shitty things happen and there is no rhyme or reason sometimes.

3. Friendships, relationships and family.

Not everyone sticks around, and that is okay. Not everyone can weather the storm of grief with you and it hurts. But there are people who can, and they show up for you abundantly, even 8 years on. You will curse some of these people and their bloodline for years, but eventually realise that you are drinking the poison and excepting someone else to die. Go where the love is… and every now and then talk the utmost, heinous shite out of them in good company and have a laugh about it all. You are so loved and cared for.

My 18th birthday. My family, my everything.

4. Joy

You will deny joy when she comes knocking at your door, many of times. Let her in. You’ll catch yourself the first time you really laugh at a friends birthday a month after mum died, and you’ll stop yourself in your tracks. Telling yourself off for allowing joy in. Joy is yours, it is your right. The good news is, you finally do. You find joy in things you never did before, in the simple things like your morning cuppa tea, sitting in nature, the laughter of your darling niece and nephew and so much more.

5. Traditions

Quit trying to make every Christmas, Easter, birthday and every other special day just like she did. You will fail miserably and put yourself in agony. Do it your own, patchwork way, she is still very much stitched into it all.

6. Faith and spirituality

It’s okay to question everything you thought you knew. To throw it all out and start again. Pay no notice to those who think you’re ‘woo-woo’, that’s their journey and you are on yours. Keep your heart and soul open to the messages, they really are everywhere if you want them to be. It won’t always be in the robins or feathers as we’re typically told, but the messages are sometimes in the music, the new people you meet who feel like her in some way when they smile, the nail colour you chose that has her name in it.

7. Time

Time is nothing at all. Relinquish the pressure you’ve placed on yourself and society that you should be done with this. There is no such thing as being done with this. Grief is for life, and that will petrify you at first, but grief won’t always feel like the grief you’re feeling now and therefore the idea of it being for life is more bearable. It is your companion, at times a fucking aggy one, but it is your companion. With time, we’re told grief heals. I don’t believe in that. But I do believe with time we eventually find a way to do the dance of life together in our own unique way.

8. Hope

Finally, hope. Darling, we must always have hope. and we do. So much so, we tattoo it on our skin to remind us every single day that we must hold onto hope. Hope is sometimes the only thing you’ve got on the tough days. Hope that tomorrow will be better, hope that this grief might take it’s foot off your neck so you can breath for a second, hope that life will one day be colourful again.

And I’m here to tell you, Amber, that those days are here.

The queen of my heart, Sue Valentine.