Grief is weird
I’ve written a lot about grief. Hundreds of thousands of words. Sometimes I think I have no more words. And yet I have this itch that I need to scratch, a gnawing anxiety that I know needs to be expressed, a knowledge that I can’t let today (the day of the Queen’s funeral) pass without writing some more, even though my prevailing feeling at the moment is that there are too many words: too many sychophantic platitudes being shared on the radio, too many angry, judgemental words being shared on Twitter. God knows what’s being shared on the television, I don’t watch it. I do know it would be too much.
I did watch a bit of the funeral today though, on You Tube. I was at home and it felt like a moment in history that should be witnessed. In some ways it was like any other funeral: the same blend of traditional readings and hymns that are familiar to any British person. In other ways, it was a different world, a world of pomp and ceremony in which men in uniform paraded and dignitaries from around the world gathered, in what? Collective grief?
That’s what the media would have us believe but the gnawing feeling I have tells me that this isn’t grief. At least, this is not the kind of grief I know. Grief doesn’t stand in an orderly queue for hours, making friends with strangers. Grief isn’t a day trip to the capital. It isn’t floral tributes and marmalade sandwiches. Grief is rage and agony, a skin torn from a carcass, a heart lying exposed. Grief is whirlpools and storms and tidal waves. Grief is losing friends more often than gaining them. Grief is undignified and not something to be shared in public, not in our culture.
Maybe that’s what jars the most. Aside from the huge expense and anachronistic traditions and the juxtapositon of this extravagance with the poverty of ordinary people. It’s the public spectacle. Every moment and every gesture poured over and torn apart. Every action filmed and commented upon. Grief should not be consumed in this multimedia 24/7 way. It is too much.
I listen to the soothing music on the radio and am told again and again that we’re all in this together, that we’re all grieving and I want to rail against it. Not in my name. This is not my grief. I don’t want to talk about my grief in this context and don’t have a neat, fond anecdote to share. Or, at least I think I don’t, but then a friend reminds me that I met the Queen once. My brain is so damaged by trauma that I don’t remember this at all. I do not remember anything special passing between us. She had no impact on my life. Sure, she reminds me a little of my grandparents and quaint English traditions. Sure I loved my Grandma, and cream teas too. Sure it’s sad. Sure she symbolised something. I even admired her dignity and composure. But I do not feel grief for the loss of a woman I never knew.
My children are bemused. They tell me that one friend’s parents danced at the news of the monarch’s death and another cried. Reactions, even in my social bubble, are mixed. It’s a lot to process. My daughter compares the insitution of the monarchy with Greggs. Meanwhile, my son stands in the garden, looking upwards at the trees. ‘All these people who say the Queen symbolised stability should go outside,’ he says. ‘The trees have been longer than her.’ I admire his wisdom.
Today I have an urge to drive to the place where we scattered my partner’s ashes and an urge to plunge my body into the cool soothing waters of the reservoir. I have an urge to be peaceful and reflective, an urge to write, an urge to connect with my own grief and to the practices that held me during those times. Because all this talk of grief does, in the end, return me to my own losses. I am not impervious after all.
I swim and I look for heart-shapes in the clouds as I did when I was grieving and I find them too. I don’t laugh at the people who think they see the Queen’s face in clouds or the people who comment on the rainbows over Balmoral. I saw these signs when I was grieving too. I read into them too. I clung to those signs that somehow there was something bigger than me and my pain. I cannot mock the public for queueing to stare at a coffin or for littering the capital with flowers and marmalade. I think it’s bonkers but grief made me mad too.
Maybe those people just wanted to be there, maybe they wanted to be part of history, maybe they have a fear of missing out. maybe they are following the crowds or maybe they just wanted a day trip. But amongst them maybe there are people who are grieving in their own way after all. Maybe they weren’t allowed to grieve their own losses. Maybe they haven’t shared their grief publicly like I did and here, today, they’ve been given an opportunity to join in with some weird, collective madness. Today, just for once, they’re allowed to be emotional, allowed to unpack all of the pain they buttoned up over the years. I know more than anything that grief is weird and that everyone’s grief is unique. Who am I to judge?
As I type this, a notification pops into my inbox from someone who is apologising for not replying to a message. She tells me she’s been laid low by grief for her parents. All of this talk of loss is triggering. At the same time, another notification pops onto my screen saying ‘Queen finally at rest’. The word ‘finally’ seems poignant and deliberate. If she has any awareness, I’m sure the Queen, like the rest of us, has had enough. I hope she is at rest. I hope now we can all be at peace. I hope that the royal family can unbutton their uniforms and be allowed to grieve privately and that a day can go by without talk of sadness.
Stop all the tv cameras. Silence the voices on Twitter. Enough now. Let us return to the world where there are troubles enough to attend to. Let there be an end to this madness. Let us all have some peace.
You can read more of my grief writing here