The journey of grief, the price we pay for love

I first wrote this six years ago, but didn't publish it.  It was and still is too painful and too raw even now coming up to 8 years since my brother died.  The month of March is when my Mum's birthday is, it is when Mother's Day is and also it is Brain Tumour Awareness month.  And at the end of the month I am organising a fundraising Tea Party for the charity Brain Tumour Research, to raise awareness of this devastating cancer and also to celebrate the life of my wonderful Mum, who died 11 months after being diagnosed with a Grade 4 Glioblastoma Multiforme tumour.   I will be revisiting the thoughts and processes I have gone through in my grief over the next wee while, I hope to show what the deaths of my loved ones have taught me about living.  But for now it seems that it is time to show how I felt when I first wrote about my grief.

December 2011


Yesterday was my late brother's birthday, he would have been 44 years old but sadly he died 2.5 years ago.  Yesterday was also the second anniversary of my Mum's death, she was 67 when she died from a terminal glioblastoma brain tumour.

They both died too young.

About 6 months after my Mum died and a year since Stephen my brother had died, I attended a grief counsellor.  I explained how I had been feeling and she said what I was experiencing was normal.  Normal! surely not?  How were people managing to cope, to deal with everyday life while grieving?  Grief consumes you.  Her advice to me was to write how I felt down.  So I did, along with reading books on everything from life after death to visiting a psychic (which strangely was a very positive, reassuring experience).

What is written below was what I wrote in my journal after visiting the counsellor.  Re-reading it now I can say that I have coped, life does go on but it's still hard.  Writing this is a small way of moving on too.  I miss them every day but now the happy memories are the ones that I have rather than the sad ones of losing them.

Thoughts on Grief

Grief can't be planned or scheduled.
Violently, it sneaks up on you and punches a hole through your heart,
takes away your breath
and leaves a lump in your throat

Or, it comes and stays a while,
wrapping a thick foggy blanket of sadness
and melancholy
around you.
Invisible, of course.

Only the individual knows how their grief feels to them and it is hard for others to see and understand.  You can go for weeks feeling normal, yes perhaps you are 'getting over it', life does move on and is to be lived, and is too short but then grief descends and opens up the rawness and pain you have within.

When I was 17, 27 years ago, I had my first encounter with experiencing the death of a loved one.  My boyfriend and first love died after being fatally injured in a car crash.  He crashed his car on the day of his 18th birthday.

I have no idea how I coped, nobody spoke to me about it.  Friends ignored me, people crossed the street away from me (really they did).  No one knew what to say.  I was asked to be strong and carry on.  I was aware of feeling as if what had happened was a bad dream.  Perhaps some conspiracy had occurred where he had really just left us and moved to Australia (or something).  Being unable to talk to anyone, I ended my teenage years rebelling, on a self-destruct mission, which I'm very happy I didn't succeed with.

Every day now, I suffer from another loss, my dearly loved brother who tragically died of a painful cancer, undiagnosed until too late to save him.

And I am angry, so very angry about losing them both.  A parent's death at any time is a rite of passage, the natural progression of life that our older generation pass before us and as sad as this is I accept it.  To be able to die having lived a long, happy and fulfilling life leaving behind our children and their children is what we expect.  But, my Mum shouldn't have died at 67, that's too young but Stephen dying at age 41 is the hardest loss.   He had so much of life to live and it is so fucking unfair that he didn't.  My loss is an intricate one, my brother and I were both adopted, not related though but we formed a small unit of 2 and we experienced a world growing up in a home with our adoptive parents in a way only he and I understood.  And now he is gone and I am alone to deal with our father, who somehow managed to come through his prostate cancer to survive when my Mum and Brother didn't survive theirs.  I am so angry about that.  And that probably is another blog post altogether.

My wee brother (he would laugh at that, my over 6ft, Glaswegian, biker, tattooed beautiful brother was never 'wee' except to me) should still be here and I rage at that.  I am furious that he is not still here with his wry humour and his wonderful laugh.

Grief is the price we pay for love, and when there has been great love, the grief is visceral and leaves great tears and scars on your heart.

and I have to stop writing now, the tears are too many, my loss is too great

Dry January Failure

I blame Rick Stein.  If his Long Weekends series was not being shown at 7.00 pm on BBC2 each night since for the last couple of weeks we wouldn't have failed Dry January.

We did try very hard to resist.  However, we succumbed,  the warmth, comfort and joy of a small glass of red wine was too much to ignore, especially as we watched one of our all time food heroes visit lots of lovely Long Weekend destinations.

Every night we tuned in to watch Rick and his crew eat local food and, of course, drink wine (and sometimes beer too).  Last night as Rick visited Palermo in Sicily, we toasted him with a glass of very nice Shiraz (which actually went really well with the Pierogis and kale we had for dinner).  YUM, a lovely warm, spicy, comforting glass of red wine to wash down dinner and watch Mr Stein.

So there it is, I blame Rick.

Actually, I don't really blame Rick but perhaps he was the catalyst.  This week I took a close friend to her radiotherapy session for breast cancer, then remembered my best friend, Eileen, from Canada who lost her battle with cancer 3 years ago and also posted a condolences card to another friend who has just lost her brave sister to cancer.  

Cancer is a cruel reminder that life can be too fleetingly short and that perhaps taking pleasure in the every day small things is a way to living life to the full.

So whilst I continue to exercise, eat healthily - more veggies, less meat etc and we have really cut back on alcohol especially since the festive season, I would rather subscribe to being balanced about it all rather than abstaining altogether.

Cheers Rick, thank you for inspiring both me and Paul to cook, eat and travel, and of course to drink the odd glass of wine too!

Ali