My grief

I wasn’t there when the breath left my mum’s body. I was curled up in an armchair, Carrie in her tutu in front of me, the episode video-taped and watched dozens of times before. Outside it was snowing. My grandma was at the hospice, I’d left them earlier - the click-clack of my grandma’s knitting needles, the gnarly huff of my mum’s laboured breath… it had all become too much to bear. I must have whispered goodbye. I hope I did. I just don’t know. 

I have buried a lot of that time, that period of nine months - or is it ten - when my mum decayed in front of me. The brain tumour ate away at her, slowly, until eventually - her mother by her side - it completed its consumption. 

When you’re 19-years-old, as I was, you think you’re so clever. So grown-up. You’re arrogant with youth, with adventure. So I thought I. Can. Handle. This. My sister had told me, shortly after the diagnosis, that this would “be with me for the rest of my life.” Inside, silently, I scoffed. My idea of grief was yes, it was hard, it was searingly painful but after a funeral (glamorous in black lace) and a few huge cries you moved on. 

I was always escaping reality back then. Blacking out, chasing men, turning my head, stubborn in my avoidance of the truth: my sister was right. This would be with me for the rest of my life. My mum has been dead 16 years now. Her loss is a stinging wound I’ve grown my flesh around. I’ve also had other griefs since then - losing my grandma, friendships splintering and breaking down and (this is a thorny one) grieving for the man my dad once was, she transitioned shortly after we lost mum. She now lives her life as a transgender woman.

These experiences have not led me to understand death, or grief, better. If anything, they’ve made me afraid. Not of my own death but the fragility of relationships - when people ask me what my love language is I often joke “it’s fear.” Just before I settled down to write this I took the Christmas tree down with my husband, wrapping our fairy lights in a way to prepare for next year, to ensure they’re not too tangled. A white flash appeared - ‘what if he’s not here then? What if he’s gone?’ I worry constantly about those I love. Each time my phone rings I think it’s the news that will shatter me. It’s an odd, heightened way to live.

About crocuses in the snow…

I want to know if it’s possible to get comfortable with death. With loss. With grief. These flashes of fear often rob me of the present, pull me out of a perfectly happy moment and into the black. What has always helped is writing, and in that writing, being as honest as possible about how I’m feeling (admitting the really grimy, shameful parts that go alongside living with my grief.)

By doing so, I’m told, I help others. I write in many forms: investigative articles as an award-winning journalist, novels (my first book The Matchmaker came out in 2019) and the poems I read and perform. Whenever I touch upon grief I get the same feedback: admiration in my honesty. The admittance that you too feel this way, and by hearing me admit it, it has helped you process your own complicated, individual grief.

It’s why I want to take you along on my next journey. Which is to explore what grief does to us, what happens when we die and how grief can take many different forms (there are many other deaths: death of relationships… deaths of the life you thought you’d live). I want to speak to people who have experienced death in a myriad of ways. I want take myself (and my grief) to new, terrifying places, exploring if it’s possible for me to live in a way that’s less afraid. As part of that I’m training to be a funeral celebrant. I want to help other families celebrate their loved ones. 

But I also want to talk to you, find out about your experiences, your grief and see if the sharing of our cobwebbed minds could help us - not heal, as healing entirely is impossible - but live with our grief in an entirely different way. 

Twice a week I’m going to be writing about grief. Speaking to people, going to different places, learning as much as I possibly can and sharing that with you. There will also be a Grief Honesty Box, where we can say the unthinkable things about our experiences, and know that we won’t be judged. I also want to get everyone writing about their grief - with journal prompts and courses. 

Sounds cheerful, right? In some ways, it will be. I’m as glass-half-full as you can get. I have - and I hope she, wherever she is, understands this - even found joy in my mum’s death. It’s why I called this newsletter crocuses in the snow: that morning, just before I left her, I had looked out of the window and saw three cheerful crocuses, poking their heads out of the white blanket of snow, surviving brightly in even the toughest of conditions.

It’s my wish for everyone - the ability to survive, brightly, and I believe we can do it together. 

Why pay?

The majority of the above will be free. I want this newsletter to help as many people as possible. But, later down the line, some parts will only be available to subscribers.

This is because getting this huge subject right is incredibly important to me. I want to be able to dedicate as much time as possible to researching, speaking to people and ensuring I cover all aspects of grief in the most sensitive, and helpful way possible. To do so, I’ll have to turn down other offers of work - to throw my all into this writing. And writing, like all other professions, is something I think is worth paying for. I’d also like to work with others, invite those who have something to share, to contribute to the newsletter - and because I strongly believe in paying for writing - I’d be paying all contributors.

To find out more about the company that provides the tech for this newsletter, visit Substack.com.