Who are we, without them?

When we have to build our lives around long-term loss...

Hello! If you’re new here, I write mostly about grief - both the traditional kind of when we lose someone we love, and other sorts of grief, say the loss of a friend, a job, or even a sense of identity. My aim is not to provide answers or guide in any way but simply to open up a conversation and attempt for us to untangle complicated thoughts together. My archive is always open and I’ve written over 100 pieces, as well as inviting others to either speak to me or write their own stories.

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I keep thinking of the corridor. I was slumped in it, my head on my friend’s shoulders. Time had disappeared. Earlier, I’d been insisting “it’s a birthday, I can’t miss a birthday,” and now, here I was, early hours of the morning, struggling to figure out how I’d got here, what had happened, why was I here... What decisions had led me to this point? Why had I made them?

I could have missed the birthday party. My mum had died the day before. Yes. I could have missed the birthday party. But I had been practicing this. It was all I knew to survive. Since her diagnosis, my life was like shattered china. I was holding together all the pieces, waiting for the glue to set in and dry. Waiting to become whole again.

I can’t tell you how long I waited because: I don’t know if I’m whole again.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes us us. When someone says “you’ve not been yourself lately” what do they mean? Don’t we all have multiple iterations of ourselves, all playing out, all at different times? How much of what happens to us shapes us? Who would we be if certain things hadn’t happened to us at certain times?

Tomorrow it will be 20 years since her death. I have become accustomed to holding myself together. That’s not to say I am cold, steely, that I do not cry. But I know how to sever myself; I know how to cut my mind off from the sadness; I know how to go to the birthday party. I keep going, until I slump.

Usually, on her anniversary, I am consumed by her. This year, I find, I am not. I think of those twenty years and all I can think of is… myself.

I feel a sense of wonder, that all that time has passed. How did I spend those years? Did I spend them wisely? If she hadn't died, then, at that pivotal point in my young life, who would I be? Who would we be? I was 19 when I lost her. I grew without her. Now, as I approach 40, I can’t picture a version of myself with her beside me. I’ve coped without her for so long. Somewhere else, in another lifetime, is there a version of me that doesn’t know how to sever herself? Who actually is as light and breezy as she appears to be?

It's hard to admit that a tragedy has shaped your entire existence, that, for twenty years - whether light or heavy - you have carried grief with you. That being shattered, broken apart, so very early on, has meant that you've had to spend precious time rebuilding yourself. If she hadn't died would I have drank the way I did? If she hadn't died would I have let the pursuit of success swallow me?

But, perhaps more pressingly, what would our time together look like? What would we talk about? What would we argue about? I know she could be critical, a trait inherited from her own mother, would she be critical of me? Would there be moments of rage, of hatred? That's not nice to think of. I don't like to think of that.

I don't know what other people's relationships are like with their mothers. I don't ask and, of course, they don't tell me. But what's it like to have someone who has lived their life before you? Who's there to tell you of the eccentricities of life, the things that are to come?

I don’t know of her inner life. I knew of her, through me. Through who I was. I was a teenager and she was a mother. Her role was to guide me, to teach me. To weather my selfish storms, to hold my crying face to her soft chest, to absorb my tears. If we’d been allowed to age together, would that be different? Would I know more of her, as a person, with secrets, with desires, with ambitions? What did she carry? There are some thoughts that I have that I only want to share with her. I want to show up, at her door, and I want to tell her what has happened to me. I want her to help me to figure out who I am.

I can’t do this. I know I can’t do this. I long for this, I long for her.

It's not that I don’t have love. I have so much love. I have people who I can turn to, people who pick me up, people who help hold me together. I have guidance. But I don’t have her guidance. Is this why I forever feel a little bit lost? Or are we all just a little bit lost? If she was here, would I even listen to her? Our relationship might not have been what I so wanted it to be.

I don’t have the answers. I’ve discovered, while typing this, I’ve grown tired of the questions. Right now, all I can say is she made me who I am, through her life and through her death. I miss her, I wish she was here, but… I also know she can’t be here. I have to be here, without her, that’s just the way it was dealt. There are some mysteries that cannot ever be solved, questions that come without answers.

All of us, living with grief, long-term or short, we hold ourselves together. We pour gold into our cracks. We Kintsugi our existences. We might have looked different before but we’ve made something beautiful out of our shattered selves.

Here’s something I wrote for her, comprised of my memories…

She taught me how to eat with chopsticks, there was a clatter of them, causing chaos in the cutlery drawer. She wore a snow leopard faux fur coat, it dragged the ground as she walked. She rarely wore make-up, spent big on her hair. She said "you wear it every day." She painted flowers, plotting out her garden on paper before the soil. In summer, she had a wide-brim straw hat, the freckles on her arm, they joined up. She had so many friends her hospice sink stored wine, there were queues at visiting time. She was always late, and quite unapologetic about it. She made us take our own sun umbrella on holiday. She pushed me to be brave. She sang Janis Joplin in the kitchen. She bathed in honey. She collected stones and shells, combing the shore for hours. She printed out the words for Auld Lang Syne and handed them out before midnight. She raised her glass and made a toast to life, even on her death bed. She put the breath in me. She's here, somehow, she's here.