The Loss

Dealing with the loss of a loved one is something I don’t think you can ever prepare for, or ever get used to. The loss of every person close to you has so many different effects on you.

I consider myself to be quite lucky, being in my late 20’s and only had to deal with the loss of one family member, and that was a great nan a over 5 years ago. But over the past few years I have been to a number of funerals, and while they have effected me in different ways, I have found my recent grief rather strange.

The loss of a family member was sudden, from getting a phone call telling me they where very ill.. While they have been ill for the past few years, they had been getting along rather well considering, so the last thing I was expecting one Wednesday evening was to have a phone call explain what had happened. I never thought much more of it at the time, just that they would get taken care of, and maybe spend some time in hospital. Another update Thursday, but it did not sound to be any worse, but not sounding any better.

Then I awake to the sound of my phone at 5am Friday morning with a message from my Mum, with the bad news. I have always said never ring me in the middle of the night if anything bad has happened. So mum was being nice to let me know by text.

I replied to my mum to let her know I had got the message, rolled over and cried for a little while. Not being able to fall back asleep, once I felt a bit better I took my mind of it with doing things, until it was time to head to work.

I headed into work as I needed to carry on with my normal stuff, as my family are the ones to not want you to stop what you are doing on such occasions. While it may sound bad, they would not want me stopping stuff just because of the circumstances, even more so that I am over 300 miles from them. I was even told not to head straight down to see them, personally I did not want to, there where others around and they did not want me to suffer or put myself out.

The funeral took place within two weeks, and from the day of the news to the days leading up to the funeral, it never felt like it had sunk in, waves of grief seemed to hit in small bits. I feel one of the things that never made me grieve straight away was the distance I was from everyone. The only contact was over the telephone, and everyone puts on a bit of brave face, which is nice, but this did not help me.