About eight weeks ago I lost someone very dear me. I went from shock to sadness and then anger. My emotions were all over the place.
Its taken me that long to pick up my keyboard and be motivated write again but I have learnt that there is no right wrong way to grieve.
There are many ways of grieving and some people may feel the need to show their grief without constraint, by crying or talking about their loss.
There are others’ that may be more unwilling to talk about it, and would rather keep themselves busy and grieve in private instead.
This does not imply that they’re not grieving but that they are demonstrating their grief differently.
I have had a lot of questions because after her passing, I learnt that my friend had been given six months to live.
I want to ask why she didn’t tell me about her illness because we spoke or text almost every day and she always said she was fine.
Some days I pick up the phone and dial her number, then I remember that she is not there to answer my call.
I then wonder how I would have reacted to the news if she had shared it with me. Would I have been supportive a supportive friend or would I have been too overwhelmed to give her the right kind of support? What would have been the right kind of support?
If I was in her shoes, what would I have done faced with a 6 month prognosis? How would I have reacted to the doctors when they sat me down and dealt me the blow that I was now living on borrowed time?
I have no answers to my own questions and then I start to imagine what the last few months of her life would have been like.
When you are faced with the prospect of death, 6 months is not a long time and while it may have been good for us to know what was going on, I have to accept that it would have been more difficult for me to comprehend.
I know that our conversations would have changed because I would have felt that I was burdening her with my problems while she had a lot on her plate.
People have a natural tendency to be overprotective to someone who they know has reached end of life and we would have stopped inviting her to events or sharing our lives with her.
There are also times when being told by friends and family that you will not die and need to think more positively about your life is not helpful and you feel better being left alone.
Apart from the family she lived with, no one knows what her last days were like. She may have been struggling to eat or sleep, reacting to medication, getting sick after meals but she did not show that she was suffering in public, continuing with work and running her business.
I do not think that there is a timeline for grieving or if we ever stop grieving for the people that we love. People that are grieving do not need to be fixed but need to be heard and it is important to give them a chance to talk and be heard without judgement or comparison. It does get better with time but the only way to do it is in your own way.