Some thoughts on grief - 5 years on

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything really personal here on this blog, longer still since I’ve written about grief. But today marks 5 years since the accident that would lead to my beautiful cousin’s death, and this morning, I woke up with an urge to get my thoughts down on paper.

When we first lost Blossom, I treated my grief like a course I needed to cram for. I bought every book on the subject, tearing through self help guides and memoirs written by people who had lost someone expectedly. I listened to hours and hours of The Griefcast podcast. I saw a counsellor, I journaled about my thoughts, I tried to talk to friends and family. I thought that if I did everything right, if I put in the work and ticked all of the boxes, I would be released from the crushing sadness of losing someone I loved so much in such a brutal way.

Of course, what anyone who has ever lost anybody will tell you is that as time goes on, you don’t actually want the grief to go away. Because it’s grief that keeps you connected to that person. It’s grief that reminds you just how important they were to you, just how much they were loved. 5 years on, I understand that no amount of reading or talking or therapy will make this sadness go away, and I’m okay with that - I wouldn’t want it to. It’s how I stay connected to our girl, it’s how we remember her and love her and keep her present in our family. 

One of the hardest parts of grief is just how lonely it can be. I am lucky in a sense, in that I walked through this experience with my big, sprawling family - we experienced it together, which means we all “get it”. But amongst friends, I know very few people who have experienced grief or loss on this scale. Of course, I am happy about that - I wouldn’t wish an experience like ours on anyone - but it does mean that it can feel lonely carrying such a weight, and if I’m honest, that loneliness can sometimes turn to envy. I am jealous of my friends’ ability to trust that everything will go right - I am a natural optimist, but when something shit happens, you automatically lose the naivety and innocence that allows you to think everything will work out, you lose the ability to assume that life will keep on dealing you the right cards. 

I also have to remind myself constantly that not everybody has the same sense of urgency that I do. I can grow frustrated when friends fall out with loved ones over something seemingly small, or put off making decisions that they know will make them happier. 5 years and 1 day ago, the phrase “life is short” was nothing more than a quote I’d scroll past on Instagram or Pinterest, now it feels like something that is permanently etched behind my eyelids. I sometimes want to shake people and remind them that nothing is guaranteed, that life as we know it could end tomorrow, but I know it’s hard to viscerally believe that until you’ve got evidence otherwise.

Brené Brown writes about the concept of “foreboding joy” - the idea that so often we interrupt the joy we are feeling by imagining all of the things that could go wrong. This is something I’ve wrestled with a lot in these last 5 years - when my anxiety is bad, every phone call or text strikes fear into me, and every piece of good news reminds me of just how much I have to lose. Gratitude is the tool that Brené recommends to counter this feeling, and that has certainly proved useful for me - when you’re so focused on what you’re grateful for in the present moment, it’s harder for those negative thoughts to spiral. But the thing that has helped me the most is remembering that joy is how we honour the people we love who are no longer here.

I can vividly remember having this realisation around 6 months after Blossom died - perhaps it was informed by everything I’d read and listened to, or maybe it was a conclusion that I drew on my own, but as that dense fog of early grief started to slowly dissipate, there was one consistent thought that kept swirling around my mind: “if she doesn’t get the opportunity to live her life, I sure as hell cannot waste mine”. It is such a huge privilege to be alive, and I will never take that for granted. I became obsessed with squeezing as much joy as possible out of life, not just for my own benefit, but out of respect for her who doesn’t get that opportunity. Now, just as grief and sadness is a manifestation of my love for Blossom, so too is joy. Joy is how we keep the spirit of the people we love alive.

I was worried that with time, my memories would start to fade, but 5 years on, there’s not a day that goes by where I don’t miss our beautiful girl. Not a day where I don’t remember something funny that she said, or wonder what she’d be like now. It will forever be painful to have such a vibrant, cheeky, beautiful part of our family missing, but I am so grateful to have been a part of her life. To have cuddled her, to have listened to her funny stories, to have laughed at her home hair cuts, to have watched her running through the house singing along to Frozen. To have loved her. 

This week, I will grieve for our beautiful Blossom. I will cry and hug my family and prod at that dormant anger and sense of injustice that never truly goes away. But I will also be mischievous and curious and laugh and truly savour the present moment. I will tell the people that I love that I love them. I will honour her in the best way I know how - with joy. I encourage you all to do the same thing.