I have been wanting to write something about dealing with grief for a while but didn’t know how to do the subject justice. Everyone has different ways of dealing with grief and we shouldn’t compare what each of us feels. However, I wanted to express the stages that I have experienced and am likely to experience at some point again in the future towards losing someone.
When I lost my Grandpa in the evening before my tenth birthday, it upset me. I cried in my bedroom for days listening to a CD recording of ‘If I could turn back the hands of time’ by R Kelly. It was tricky as I’d always go to my grandparents every day to visit if I wasn’t staying there. However, for some reason, we drove past and forgot to pick up my birthday cake which leads to me not seeing my Grandpa the evening before he died. This has played on my conscious for a long time which I now understand was part of the process of grief.
My Grandfather was a proud family man and I he’d often tell me how proud he was of his granddaughter. He was the first male figure that really showed me kindness, compassion, and above all care. He spent evenings on end teaching me to play cards and feeding me pick and mix sweets. I always saw him as the male figure of the family and if anyone upset his girls (he had two daughters and three granddaughters) he would ensure he stuck up for them. I do hope you are still proud of us all.
As years went on I did loose other family relations or family friends and I thought that maybe grief was different at different ages. I thought maybe it was a skill to become good at and maybe become ‘used to’ but I soon realised that there is no preparation to lose people we love.
On Sunday 2nd of September 2018, I received a call from my Mum in the early morning to tell me my Nan had passed away. That night I had not slept well and felt uneasy about something. I then woke to see my Mum calling at a time she wouldn’t normally. Hearing the news made me bawl with tears endlessly. I then tried to continue with my day as normal but ended up falling from the top of my staircase due to my mind clearly still being in shock. For days and days, I cried whilst trying to keep it together at my job and throughout meetings.
In the early stages, I knew she had been poorly with cancer but deep down I hoped we were turning a corner after several operations and what looked to be positive signs. For days I just couldn’t believe this could be true and told myself that when I went to her house she would still be there. I would read messages from friends to our family and I couldn’t put it together she was gone and that she wouldn’t be back. I would call and listen to her voice on her voicemail and not believe it could be true. I was in shock.
As the next few weeks went on, we needed to make funeral arrangements. For me, this gave me something to occupy myself alongside my full-time job. It allowed me to enter a state of denial. Every day I would talk to family members to make decisions about the funeral. I organised the flowers for the funeral, wrote my Nan's eulogy, and volunteered to read it. I asked people for any song suggestions they had, kept texting and calling relations to check they knew about the funeral and to check that everyone was still doing okay. I think this allowed me time to treat it as if my Nan had gone away for a period and would be returning like she did when she had her operation.
On the day of the funeral, I was again the person making sure everyone knew what was going on. I made sure I was smartly dressed and wore my Nan's butterfly brooch with pride. I wanted to make sure that she knew how much I, and everyone else, cared about her, and felt that this would be the final time to show her. In the church, I managed to hold myself together and read through her eulogy quite well without stumbling too much. I pride myself on being someone who can keep my emotions under control but this time when I sat back down, and family smiled at me, I couldn’t hold it together. From there onwards I couldn’t stop crying my eyes out and I certainly couldn’t look up or to the back of the crematorium to see relations. I sat next to my oldest cousin and my Mum and for the first time I couldn’t hold it together anymore and the pain was overwhelming. As the music Supermarket Flowers by Ed Sheeran sang ‘a heart that’s broke is a heart that’s been loved’ I had to accept my Nan had gone forever.
This stage of pain seems to have stayed around for a long time and seems to creep back. For weeks I felt like it got worse as I shouldn’t be talking about her anymore or I should be over it by now. I felt I should have it together by now or I shouldn’t be upset anymore which made me feel even more lost. I felt guilty I had not visited more from London in the last few years. I felt guilty I had not done more to help her get better or helped her enjoy her life more instead of caring for us all the time. I felt guilty she didn’t go on holiday more or have a relaxing retirement. I felt guilty, and still feel guilty, I didn’t stay with her more towards the end and support her as she had to me all my life. I felt guilty that maybe I hadn’t told her how much she meant to me or if I hadn’t told her how much she had done for me. I felt guilty that the night before I had called to speak to her but didn’t make my Mum pass the phone to speak to her one final time. There are no words that do my Nan enough justice or words that can describe how much pain I feel from missing her. She was a lady of grace, manners and I always looked up to how proud she was. I came to realise my Nan was always the mother-figure of the family and everyone sought her opinion and advice. We were all incredibly lucky to have a role model who treated everyone fairly and welcomed everyone into our family. The pain of missing her is very much still with me every day. I take pride in helping students or families when they have lost a grandparent recently and to share with them the stories of my Nan.
‘And when God takes you back we'll say ‘Hallelujah You're home.’’ Ed Sheeran, Supermarket Flowers.
For months I felt angry that my role model had been taken. Someone who I wanted to sit right next to me at my wedding day or someone I wanted to see me succeed at work or at buying a house. I felt angry that I had had my fair share of sadness and that someone I needed shouldn’t have been taken from me. I looked around at everyone my age who still had parents, grandparents and even great grandparents to spend their Christmas with. I went about each day working feeling as if my life had been given a black card and what had I done to deserve this. In time I learned to realise that we all get dealt with cards that can be taken from us and I should see this as another life lesson to live in the moment of each day.
It has been hard not feeling lonely when someone who I’ve looked up to for twenty-five years every day of my life has been taken from me. During my childhood, there were many years spent living with her and spending each minute of the day with her. I would cover her walls in my pictures, eat egg soldiers in the kitchen then spend the day in the garden. We would bake every week and I would always be told off for licking the bowl. Her house was a place I felt safe and calm from the business of life. She always made me feel I could live in the moment and we had all the time in the world. When my Mum spent time in hospital in London for months when my sister was born, my Nan moved into my house. I would go to sleep on the camp bed on the floor (and Nan in my single bed) and I’d sit up and ask all the questions I had before we would fall asleep. Then I would wake up and Nan would reassure me ‘everything would be fine’ and we would go about our everyday. Nan attempted to keep me going to dance club, even going to festivals, and not being able to do my hair or falling asleep in the audience. She would sit for hours in the car in the snow waiting for me to finish dance classes.
Throughout my life, my Nan has always been there and listened to me. Even when I decided I wanted to move to London to dance she thought I was crazy but was there for me. Every day after dance school and every weekend I would call, and we would be on the phone for hours. She never understood the concept of unlimited calls and would thank me for calling her. She would send free charity cards to me in the post with messages to keep me going or insist on me buying an iron or a new phone. No matter what I had to say she would listen as if it was the best news and she had all day to spare. There was never a time she would not answer or not be there for me to visit or just sit and lecture about my life. She would remind me everything happens for a reason and people are the way they are. She made me believe that whatever I wanted to do I would succeed at and that wherever I was, was exactly where I was meant to be.
‘I was always told to be myself, don’t change for anyone’ Thursday, Jess Gynne.
Time has passed and it becomes the new normal for that person to not be there. Life does continue each day without that person, and we must continue to work through this chapter in our story. I have created new ways to deal with sad days by listening to music or using that energy to help others. I have channeled sadness into choreography when teaching or set about making new projects. I have tried to use the energy of when I miss her to do something she would have done. I have had kind words from people, and I hope to think that some of my Nan's wisdom and kindness will have rubbed off on me somewhere. When I wake up and walk outside to fresh spring air and hear birds, I know she is there. Every day when I mess up or have difficult days, I hear her voice, or I fall asleep and know she there in that middle world wanting me to continue fighting.
I know I am incredibly lucky and the pain I feel when missing her is because she was incredibly loved. I have accepted eighteen months on that I know my Nan passed away ending any pain she was in. I have accepted even though she is gone that I can share her wisdom and kindness to others. My Nan has taught me so many qualities and skills to live my life with and guided a pathway. She will probably never know how proud I was to be her granddaughter but one day I will tell her. I have accepted that I can share memories to my children one day about the person she was and that this way she will continue to live on. When people say ‘you’re very wise for your age’ to me, I secretly add that to a tally in my head towards my Nan's influence. I know that my Nan lived her life happy and was loved by so many individuals and that if I can be a Nan one day it would be anything as amazing. Her death has also taught me to cherish memories more and say yes to every opportunity that comes my way even if it scares me. I have learned to stop listening to people properly or take photos and see the size of my laugh or smile in each one.
I hope everyone that reads this can understand grief is a difficult and challenging process. I have written about seven different stages I felt I have gone through, but they don’t come in order. There are days when I want to share my news and I am not ready to accept it. Or there are days when I am angry that no one is understanding me just how my Nan used. But my lasting message is we will get through it and you will be found by someone else.
‘So let the sun come streaming in, 'Cause you'll reach up and you'll rise again’ Dear Evan Hanson, You will be found.
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