First, welcome. Make yourself comfortable.
One thing I’ve learned since grief hit me like a ton of bricks, and then a wave, and then a dull ache, and then another ton of bricks, and then a clawed hand grasping at the inside of my soul, and then an aggravation like a shoe making a blister, and then a creepy annoyance that I think I’ve learned to deal with but pops up to remind me of its presence on an irregular basis, is that there is no right way to grieve. Love is individual, makes sense that grieving that love is too.
I’m not an expert in grief, I’m just a grieving person. My grief is nebulous and changing and is not the same as it was in the earliest days, but I know will always be with me, because the person I grieve will always not be anymore. And so, there are no answers here. What there is here – I hope – is solidarity and understanding.
Everyone finds their own way through the seconds, minutes, days and months – it looks different for everyone. Some days are bad days, some days are better days, and in time, I promise, some days are really good days. But every day that we make it through is an achievement, and if we look hard enough, maybe even on the worst days we can find something, some moment, decision, smile, thought, memory, conversation that we can see as a good thing, even if it was so fleeting that we almost missed it in all the rest of the stuff that bereavement brings.
I met the person who would become my husband when I was 22. He died when I was 40. My whole adult life he had been my best friend. You can find out more about me, and about him (and about our kids) if you want to. Figuring out who I am without him is not something I wanted to do, but cancer made sure I had to. I’m trying to do that by unexpectedly taking advice from Princess Anna (yeah, I know how that sounds, bear with me though), and focus on doing the next right thing.
I won’t look too far ahead
It’s too much for me to take
But break it down to this next breath, this next step
This next choice is one that I can make
Looking too far ahead can easily leave the bereaved feeling either hopeless, depressed or terrified, but for me looking to the next act of kindness, being a good friend, hugging my kids, making a good choice, doing something for myself, making a difference to the world, learning or realising or acknowledging something I hadn’t thought about, even getting out of bed to face another day – I can do that. And as I do these things, I think I’ll keep finding my way to myself without him.
These are my next right things – my next right choices – my way forward. People say a lot “it’s what he would have wanted” and maybe he would, it’s impossible to know, he’s not here to ask. The only thing I know for sure that he would have wanted is not to die of cancer leaving his kids to grow up without a dad before they even left primary school (one had only just started). So this isn’t about that.
My next right things are about me. But your next right things are about you. Maybe my words might help you find yours. Maybe my story resonates with yours. Maybe your next right thing helps me find mine. Who knows?
But I figure a community of people finding their next right things, going together to walk through this night, stumbling blindly toward the light, might be a next right thing for all of us.
I started writing here coming up to the first anniversary of becoming a widow, while the world was in the first lockdown of 2020, from a place of wanting space to process my own thoughts while trapped in a house with three children and no adult company at all for weeks on end. I started writing to help myself, but also to imagine a connection that at that time wasn’t possible “in real life” because we were all trapped in different circumstances that none of us had imagined, it’s just my trapped also included solo parenting recently bereaved kids. I’ve kept writing because it still helps me, even though life changes and grows and occasionally flourishes and occasionally wobbles like jelly. And I still hope to connect as I make sense of my own thoughts, because bereavement is isolating in so many ways (not least the isolation of your person being dead) and if sharing anything I experience resonates with even one person to make them feel less isolated, then that’s the biggest win.
Grief changes over time, just like we do, and so you might find earlier posts chime better with where you are now if the more recent ones don’t feel familiar yet. Explore away.
Feel free to lurk, feel free to comment if anything you read rings true, feel free to share your next right things which can be totally unrelated to mine in the comments to remind yourself that there are next right things for you, too, and maybe inspire others as you go.
It’s nice to have you here.
The Next Right Things... 