Grief ... and not being 'fine'

Hannah & Olivia

I am incredibly lucky in my life. I have some of the most amazing friends who I love dearly and with all my heart. Since loosing you I've had to revaluate some friendships and sadly some have fallen by the way side. This saddens me greatly as loyalty has always been one of my biggest strengths and, to some extent, my greatest weakness. In life people come and go, its just sad when you loose a 'keeper'.

On the plus side I have so many good friends, quality and quantity, though the former is far more important. It hasn't mattered how long I've known them for or how often I see them they have gone above and beyond to show me that they care. I will not begin to mention what they've done for me because I will undoubtedly miss someone and I want to cause no offence.

One of them is James Parry. He often jokes about me using the word 'fine', and even calls it the 'f - word'. For me, as the picture says above, fine can mean everything from "I'm ok" to "the world is falling apart", but it is generally the answer whenever I am asked how I am.

Today is not one of those days. Today I am not fine.

Your due date was tough but not as bad as I was expecting other than the balloon release. This was lovely and symbolic but felt like saying goodbye to you all over again.

I received a lovely text message the next day from Anne Parry asking how I was as sometimes the day after something you've been psyching yourself up for can be worse. I genuinely wasn't that bad but I replied today saying "what about the day after, the day after something you've been psyching yourself up for".

Her answer was

"And the day after that, and the one after that, honey. I think it will

always have the capacity to floor you from nowhere when

you least expect it. And that's perfectly normal and ok.

And anyone who tells you otherwise has no

fucking clue about grief".

 

 

There are only certain friends I feel comfortable saying how I am truly feeling. I am sure that the majority of times people ask you how you are its out of politeness and not because they are really wanting to hear the true answer. I *love* that people can talk to me and confide in me but I hate feeling like I'm a bother to other people. I hate having to say I'm not fine as I feel like I am just a broken record. However it has only been six months and I have just lost two children.

However, that's the thing about grief, as Anne said, it can floor you out of no where. Today I am not good, tomorrow I will more than likely be better. The day after ? who knows....

 

This can make it difficult for people to deal with.

There is no time scale on grief.

I found a quote by William Faulkner which said "Given a choice between grief and nothing, I'd choose grief". As strange as this may seem to someone I feel the same. Why would anyone *want* to feel like this, to feel this miserable. The reason is that grief is the flip side of joy. You cannot know one without knowing the other. Would I have preferred for none of this to happen ? Without a shadow of a doubt. Would I have preferred to have never felt the joy ? No. Never. Not for one second.

 

I wish you were here with all my heart. So does Daddy.

We always will.

There is never a day that goes by where we don't think of you.

 

watch over us, 

Always in our hearts

Love

Mummy