Do you ever grieve subconsciously? Like, your subconscious is calling to you from the top of a hill but you can’t quite make out what it is saying.

I woke up today with tearful eyes and a foggy mind, which no amount of coffee could lift. I felt despondent at work but I couldn’t put my finger on why. 

What’s wrong with me? 

I manage a lot of projects that are networked into folders by date. 2020/03/09.

2020/03/09.

… And I finally catch up with my subconscious. 

My mum passed away 18 months ago today. 

~

A year ago today was one of the darkest weekends that I had experienced since Mum had passed. I was really dreading the 6 month mark, it was all I could think about. I just wanted to stop time and be silently suspended in my sadness but instead I had agreed to go to Bristol.

But besides the pain, what I remember most about this time last year was that it was the night we started receiving comments on this blog: “I lost ______ 5 years ago”

I sat in bed reading the comments in disbelief as the cogs in my brain started turning… People actually live with their grief? 

I think back to 6 months ago when Evee wrote her post The Human Condition. How defeated I felt when I believed I was failing my grief because I wasn’t in the same position as her. Her post told our readers, myself being one of them, that her grief wasn’t shaping her life anymore. But for me it was; my hand did still shake when I saw Mum’s mug in the cupboard.

I’m not back there anymore though.

Sat at my desk today, the realisation that it’s been 18 months didn’t bring my world crushing down around me as the anticipation of the 6 month mark did last year. 

Today, I am holding down a full-time job that I would never have been able to do this time last year. 

Today, I can laugh with a new friend on the tube about how bad my mum’s cooking was. I can tell her how one time Mum made us a pasta dish that tasted so bad I had to search the bin to see whether the crème fraiche was out of date. I immediately phoned her to moan and then laugh that Evee and I’s tummy aches were because of gone off crème fraiche.

I can laugh about how when I was 11 years old, one time Mum forgot to make dinner altogether. I quietly piped up to ask “ummmm, Mum, are we going to eat dinner tonight…?” She jumped up in shock at her forgetfulness and 10 minutes later apologetically presented Evee and I with a bowl of pasta and ketchup. She apologised for days after that. I can laugh at those stories now with friends who never even met my mum.

~

(Side note: please know that my mum had so many strengths, it’s just that cooking really wasn’t one of them!) 

~

And after 18 months, I can be that little voice on the internet to anyone who needs to hear it. My mum passed away 18 months ago. Theres not a day that goes by that I do not think of her or the people who helped us through it. I won’t lie and tell you that it hurts less with more time, because that’s not true. Your pain and love will never diminish, but you will become strong enough to carry it with you.

Don’t cry
Hold your head up high
She would want you to

Bear’s Den – Above The Clouds of Pompeii

Katie