Sunday 9 June 2019

Sixth Anniversary: unexpected friendships and the lessons of grief

Six years have passed since Ruby died and life flows relentlessly on. The path of grief needs continual navigation but over time there are fewer surprises, fewer hard turns or stony trails.  As a runner would say, my path is less "technical"- fewer roots, rocks and climbs to test my body and mind.
The sixth anniversary of Ruby's death was only a few weeks ago. Each year I feel more confident in my predictions, to expect the unexpected, I know the weeks leading up to the day itself are the most upsetting and that the actual anniversary itself is a strange type of relief, a release of a pressure valve. I know I need to have a plan of distraction, I know I need to organise my day-job so that I can fulfil tasks expected of me prior to the build up of tension, I know I need a few days off work as a break from the psychic effort that is necessary to be at least a half-decent support worker (I am a nurse helping homeless people with severe mental health problems and addiction issues). I know I need to deliberately increase my sensitivity to Tom and Claire's needs prior to Ruby's anniversary as I can be emotionally numb in the preceding days.  I have had six years practise, I am a pro.

But if there's one thing grief has taught me it is that life's new route is not straightforward. I achieved only half of my predicted actions for this year because the unexpected, it turns out, is always more unpredictable than I'd remembered. The result was that I was very anxious and very sad even though I had prepared well. I did prepare well but I had prepared for the wrong thing.
I have learnt something new this year- no matter how much effort I put into preparation for each new anniversary of Ruby' death there will be an unavoidable sadness at this time, about which nothing can be done. I have learnt that, although my preparation cushions my landing, I must allow myself to fall. I have often written about the importance of freeing myself from the tyrannical grip of things that are out of my control and this appears to be something I need to periodically remind myself. This time I misidentified the issues in my control. I have tried, year after year, to control my emotions at the time of Ruby's anniversary but this has been a wild miscalculation. From now on I will let those feelings flow and will instead focus on the acceptance and consequences of those feelings- I will prepare as best I can, I will remember that it will be maddeningly sad and acutely painful but I will roll with those punches, I will be gentle to myself and I will focus on sharing love with other people as a type of selfish mental health first-aid.

Three months ago I met with two close friends for dinner. Year after year we are busy with work and the usual commitments of everyday life getting in the way of friendships so we get together once a season. I told them I had my first appointment for cognitive behavioural therapy with a psychotherapist the following week to address my grief and related trauma. I had been feeling inert and in desperate need of change for the last two years since my mum died and I had been unable to process this new grief on top of the old grief. I was stuck. I had been looking at new jobs, new careers, new interests, but had realised that the change I needed was internal not external. (How many therapists does it take to change a lightbulb? Only one but the lightbulb has to want to change).
Neither friend has spoken to me since. No text, no phone call, no arranging to meet again (I have seen the therapist each week since then and it has been extremely beneficial). This is another surprise about grief that I had forgotten- the unusual friendship. When Ruby died, and since then, I have lost friends. My recent experience with these two friends have shown that, even if someone's heart is there, they may be unskilled or unconfident about what to say. There are a hundred reasons why those two friends might not have been in touch- maybe they continue to not know what to say, maybe they haven't thought about it again, maybe they're waiting for me, as usual, to suggest another night out as it's now been a few months since we last met, maybe they have their own distractions and that life just goes on- but it's an interesting point to note that even though some friendships carry on just as normal before one's bereavement, others can change in dramatic and unexpected ways.
After Ruby died, other people became new friends. Some people stepped forwards not back, became new supportive partners helping me grieve and helping me reconnect to others again. I now have, for example, two new friends (I had know them both for some years prior to this but was never close)- G was one of the first people to see me after Ruby died and although he obviously had no idea what to say at the time (who does?) he stayed with me because he felt it was the right thing to do. This may sound odd to someone who may not have been bereaved but this seemingly innocuous act of just being with someone even if you are silent, even if you don't know what to say, can be immeasurably valuable. He had also become a role-model by then, helping me become fit and healthy, running and cycling, he has unwittingly extended my life by many years and he has greatly improved my health and my happiness.  The other friendship, JJ,  has also grown over the years. He is gentle and loving and kind and I am proud to know him. He is a vegetarian humanist, modest and life-changing in his work, he is loyal to his small group of close friends and to his awesome wife- a therapist who eases the burden of others' mental distress every day. These are good people to know and to be around.

An over-confident, experienced griever like me suddenly forgot the important basics of how to grieve "properly". I would do well to revisit those foundations to review my baseline every now and then- principles of bereavement such as flexibility, honesty about my emotions, considering how I want to live, being loving and kind, creating and contributing, knowing that everything passes.
It was the sixth anniversary of Ruby's death that prompted me to consider these two very important reflections- the deep effect of these new friendships (their positive influence, their kindnesses, their emancipatory powers) and the importance of identifying my emotions (and preparing myself for their effects not for their elimination). I will continue to learn forever.








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