You don't always have to 'make the chilli'...

How one popular grief sentiment derailed me...

I’ve had a story, winding its way around my brain, for the past few days. It’s been niggling at me, and I want to write about it. But I’m reluctant to, as it was a story of grief, and a life lesson that someone had taken from that grief. I don’t want to be insensitive to what helps people, but the story wrapped up a sentiment that I see again and again: one that I fell for, that I still fall for, that I now think isn’t particularly helpful. Perhaps you’ll disagree, and that’s OK, it’s just something I want to put out there, and ponder.

Interestingly, when searching for the source of this story, I found it on multiple blogs and Reddit threads, often told from different perspectives – one was a man out playing golf with his buddy, who quietly whispered ‘make the chilli’ while another was the below, from a woman’s perspective.

On first glance, it’s a really nice sentiment. And, in some ways, it’s one I agree with. We should value the people in our lives, and we shouldn’t take them from granted, we should be kind and we should tell people that we love them.

One morning my mum was singing to herself, while doing the ironing, and the next she was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour. One that ate away at her, until she embodied that tumour… until she was gone. So yes, I know that any moment, unexpectedly, the people we love could be taken away from us.

But should we really be living in such a heightened state? One where, each time, someone we love asks us for something, we just do it? What does loving deeply, and selflessly, really look like?

I loved my mum deeply. But I did not love her selflessly.

I lost her at 19, so many of the previous years I had spent with her, before she died, were ruled by hormones, by boys, by shallow needs. I can remember screaming at her, because she didn’t give me what I deemed to be ‘enough’ money to spend at prom. I am now grimy with memories, of tantrums in Dune because I wanted a bigger block heel; by clothing she bought for me that I sneered at; saying it wasn’t ‘cool’ enough; of the times I told her she embarrassed me, for wearing her moon-and-sun print trousers, with a snow leopard print coat thrown over the top.

She was majestically eccentric, a wonder, the most marvellous woman I’ve ever known, and… I forgot to buy her birthday presents.

There have been many, many times where I’ve flogged myself with my own failings. Where I wished I just MADE THE FUCKING CHILLI. I could continue to list them, but I won’t, as it will be pulling myself back to a state of self-hatred, one I spent years in, and which I’ve worked very hard to escape from.

I didn’t visit her for days. When she was dying.

I was 19-years-old and the person lying in the bed was no longer my mum. I walked away, backed out of that room, because being in that room was like being doused in acid. The pain was unbearable.

And this is what simple throw-away statements like ‘make the chilli’ can’t capture. I understand the heart of its message is good, that it’s not meant to harm. That it’s also something many people feel, particularly, after the death of a loved one. But I think it’s also denying some of life’s realities, and that denial can make people feel a deep, damaging guilt, that is very hard to shake.

I felt that guilt. I still feel that guilt.

It’s denying how complex life is, how we so often have to make mistakes in order to not make them again. How we often have to make the same mistakes over-and-over for the lesson to truly sink in.

I punished myself for years, for my behaviour, both when my mum was ill but also when she was healthy. She was someone I loved deeply, but I didn’t love her how the make-the-chilli story tells me I should have loved her. I often said ‘no’ to the things she wanted to do. Looking back on all those times, I would label myself selfish, spoiled scum. And to be honest, as I type this, I fear you’ll be thinking it too. Thinking I’m just criticising this ‘make the chilli’ statement to make excuses for how rotten I am.

This is where it gets complicated. As I can’t untangle what I should regret, versus what I’m told I should regret. As I do believe we should treasure the people that we love, but we can’t do it to extremes.

My husband asked me to play a boardgame last night. I said no. If he doesn’t make it home tonight, should I regret that for the rest of my life? I’m overdue sending my dad and multiple friends voice notes, what if… what if… what if… I’m going into a spiral about all of this, all from seeking out, and re-reading that ‘make the chilli’ post. I am worried I won’t be able to pull myself out, in time, to finish this newsletter how I want to.

But I have to. I have to tell you. Please don’t feel guilty if you didn’t make the chilli. If you lost someone and are now replaying the moments where you should have loved them harder, better, more ‘selflessly.’ And please don’t live your life in a heightened state, one where danger lurks everywhere, and loss is just a second away.  

I lived this way for so long. I thought, if anything can come from my self-punishment of the moments I didn’t savour with my mum then, at least, I can carry that into my day-to-day life and how I treat people. This idea of ‘someone you love, at any moment, can be taken from you’ haunted me. I could not trust my phone when it rang, I could not trust my own happiness. Any moment that did not feel full of love, or joy, felt a waste and I would chastise myself for that waste. Never mind if I was tired, or ill: if I wasn’t being SMILEY, AND HAPPY, AND POSITIVE to those around me, then I was behaving wrongly.

When it came to conflict, I could not cope. I’d cry, huge, gulping, can’t-breathe, cries at even the smallest of criticisms from my husband. I avoided arguments in most areas of my life, and if I was ever annoyed with someone, particularly my dad, I’d be so cross with myself. You’re wasting precious time, being annoyed, she could be gone, tomorrow…

The facts of this are not wrong. But the way I lived (the way I still live, sometimes) with those facts was unhealthy. Yes – we could lose the people we love but that doesn’t mean we can’t be cross with them, or that they can’t be cross with us. That doesn’t mean we should do absolutely everything that they want, pushing our own needs aside. It also doesn’t mean that, if we do make mistakes, these are all our loved ones will remember of us. We don’t have to be smiley, perfect, positive, make-the-chilli humans in order to be loved.

Living this way left me exhausted. In my darkest, most tired, most ashamed moments it made me really, really hate myself. That plays out in ways I cannot even begin to unravel.

But I’m trying to. I know I am simply human. And a loved one, at that.

Yes, I wish I had bought my mum more bottles of bubble bath for her birthday. I am ashamed of how spoiled I was. But I was also a teenager, I had to be spoiled and stupid in order how to learn not to be.

And yes, I wish I hadn’t walked out of that room. But I was engulfed in my own horror: my self-protection had flipped into denial, and avoidance. It was natural and I have to forgive myself for that.

We cannot love entirely selflessly. It’s impossible. And I don’t think our loved ones would want us to. I also don’t think love is shown by making meals, or playing board games, or going for walks… Sometimes, yes, but not all the time.

My mum saw my whole self. My snappy, silly, selfish side. My warmth and my kindness. We danced together, and we swam together, and we had fun together. I didn’t force myself to do any of those things because I thought I might lose her, but because I loved her. And, because I loved her, and she loved me, I also knew I could say ‘nah, can’t be bothered’ and we could fight, and that she’d love me, and hold me when, eventually – as I always did – I crawled into her arms, muffling ‘sorry’ into her cashmere jumper.

She loved every part of me. I loved every part of her.

That’s what I try to carry into my relationships now. Loving them in their entirety, their wholeness, their selfishness, and their mistakes.

But also loving myself entirely, in my wholeness, in my selfishness and in my mistakes.

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

Thank you so much for reading! I’m sorry I’ve been a bit absent, in truth I got a little stressed by the number of new subscribers I’ve had recently, and I wanted my first post back to be really, really good… And, as a result, I got a little writer’s blocky. And now I’ve maybe made my first post quite controversial! I hope it the make-the-chilli story helps you, you don’t take too much from my words… We are all helped in grief by different things! I just wanted to write about it as…. it didn’t help me. Anyway, as always, thanks so much for all your support and please do let me know what you think.