When you feel like the only one

(from my Growing through it, from Grief to Growth blog)

I remember it was a few weeks after Rónan passed, I don’t remember exactly how many. I was sitting outside on our front lawn taking some quiet time, by myself. Our daughters and my husband were inside. I didn’t want to upset them in that moment and to be truthful, I just didn’t want to feel responsible for anyone in that moment either. They were all inside and they were safe. For now, that was enough.

I felt stuck to the grass, it was damp and I was getting wet, it was sunny but not really warm. I couldn’t bring myself to move. I was numb. I sat and stared into space. It must have been a weekend because our landlord was down working on the nearby farm. He spotted me and came over. I continued to sit, stuck to the grass. He bent down on one knee to be on my level and asked me how I was, and then – he listened.

What a treasured gift to give someone who is grieving. To just listen. Not offer any advice or influence how they could or should be feeling, but to meet them where they are at, emotionally and physically, and just be present with them in their pain.

I explained to him that I knew, in my rational mind, that there were women throughout the course of history who had experienced what I had, and far too many women before me had experienced this excruciating pain, but despite knowing that – I felt like I was the only one.

I felt like the world had kept spinning for everyone else, but that mine had stopped. I felt like mine had come crashing down, collapsing all around me and I was now sitting in the rubble of dreams and memories. It felt like I was stuck between two worlds and didn’t belong to either one of them. The abyss of grief was all consuming and I didn’t know if I would ever find a way out.

It wasn’t a long conversation and I hadn’t known our landlord very long, but he brought a kindness, genuineness, concern and empathy to the conversation. That conversation will forever stay with me and I am grateful for it, not only did it help me to voice how isolated I was feeling, but it marked a moment in time for me to capture those feelings. Looking back it is hard to believe that it was me, and yet I remember it so vividly. Back then I couldn’t imagine reaching a point where I could sit and write these words. The landscape of my grief has changed over the passage of time, and while it has only been a relatively short time, I did figure out what worked for me in terms of helping me feel less isolated. This will be the focus of my next few posts, I will also cover what has worked for others as we are all different (and a few words of warning too!)

Another factor in relation to grief isolation is the discomfort of others. Talking to someone who is recently bereaved can make people uncomfortable, unfortunately what can happen is they end up avoiding the bereaved person, or avoiding talking about their loved one. Both these types of avoidance can unfortunately add to the feelings of isolation for the bereaved and bring another layer of pain. I often wondered about this and looking back I think it is because of fear – a fear of upsetting, a fear of saying the wrong thing, a fear of being stuck for words altogether. I think if there is a way to help address this fear, then it might help the bereaved feel less isolated and alone at a time when they already feel so lost. This will be explored in another upcoming blog post.