DEALING WITH GRIEF

"At the top of the stairs is a photograph of Melissa.  It was taken in the middle of Liverpool, three months before she was diagnosed. I walk past, and look at it, maybe twenty or thirty times a day. 

THE FIRST YEAR

In the weeks and months after Mel passed away I dealt with my own personal grief by keeping busy.  I had plans.  I wanted to raise awareness of the disease and help those that helped others in any way I could.  I decided to cycle from London to Paris and whilst training for that I wrote "One Day at a Time ~ Mel's Story".  There was always a chapter to write, a training ride to be done.  There were other projects too, minor by comparison, but all kept me busy and kept my mind (most of the time) away from what had happened in the previous year.  I couldn't think deeply about the journey we had been on.  The pain was too much and I couldn't go back to that place.  I wanted to remember Mel as the fun loving, enthusiastic young girl she was, not the bedridden poorly young woman who at the end of her life couldn't eat or speak.  I also found (and still do a lot of the time), that wherever I was I wanted to be somewhere else. 

One thing that did become apparent during the first twelve months after Mel passed away was that you get get two shots at every anniversary.  There were so many in Mel's illness, Christmas Eve when her chances of a cure diminished to around 20%.  April 1st when we were told they could do no more for her and then of course, May 11th, the day she died.  May 11th 2008 was a Sunday.  May 11th 2009 was a Monday, so you find yourself dealing with the anniversary on both the day and the date.  The same applies to all anniversaries throughout the year.   I thought that would change after the first year, that you would tend then to remember dates.   I was wrong.  The weekend that Mel passed away was if anything, harder than May 11th, which the second year fell on a Tuesday.  Another significant part of our personal grief was, and still is our lack of energy.  I feel as though life has been drained out of me.  I could walk miles with the dog, but at the same time felt drained.  Everything was an effort.  Even now, nearly two years after Mel died, there are some days when it takes all we have just to get out of bed and drag ourselves to work, never mind complete a working day.  To this day we still have to make an enormous effort just to go anywhere.  Once we're out it's ok, but the effort in going out is sometimes monumental.

THE SECOND YEAR

Once my cycle ride was finished and the book published I had no big projects to fall back on and it was then that the grief truly hit me.  I remember thinking that all I had done in the first year had been futile, nothing had changed, Mel wasn't coming back.  I hadn't made a blind bit of difference.  I suddenly had a lot more time on my hands and that allowed me to think more.  My thoughts turned back to the illness and how horrible it had all been.  The days in hospital, seeing Mel so poorly, but being so proud of how she battled and managed to keep fighting back.  I cried so much, I was overcome with tiredness and began to wonder what was the point of anything.  I lost my appetite and slowly sank into depression.  Julie was dealing with her own grief, we'd been parallel throughout the first year, but all of a sudden we were in different places and we both found it hard to accept each other's state of grief.  I eventually went to the doctor and was prescribed anti-depressants, which allowed me to get to a place where I was able to fight back once more.

In my darkest hours during my depression I did contemplate suicide, I needed to look after Mel again and the only way I could be with her was through my own death, but then life is precious and Mel didn't have a choice whereas I did.  I still maintain though that if I could have guaranteed being united with Mel I would have taken my own life.  I know it's a selfish attitude, but then after all that had happened I believed I had a right to be selfish.  It may sound as though I didn't give Becky and Julie a second thought, but nothing could be further from the truth.  I believed that they would be ok, because they had each other and they would look after each other.  I needed to find Mel and look after her.  I realise now my thought process was way off the mark, but at the time it seemed almost logical. 

TODAY AND THE DAYS AFTER

I'm still grieving, though I sometimes believe that if you're not crying your eyes out, people think that you're ok and over the worst.  Maybe I'm being too harsh, but attitudes do change as time goes on, however,  the absolute agony and pain of losing your child doesn't soften.   I've learnt to manage the grief and heartache and that's as much as I'll ever be able to do.  Some days I manage it well, some days it beats me.  I get more irritated by people than I used to and I find I have to step back with my thoughts and feelings more.  I'm less tolerant to someone who says their life is over because they can't decide whether to go on a Mediterranean cruise or have their garden landscaped.  I find that I can only deal with so much stress now.  I'm still grieving and that takes so much energy, that other stresses in life have to take a back seat and I have to walk away from them.  If I can't walk away, I have to step out of normal everyday life for a while and build myself back up.  I feel I'm only ever a step away from depression. Or do I confuse depression with out and out sadness.  I suppose what I'm saying is that I can't take on as much stress as I used to.  Julie is the same.  At the top of the stairs is a photograph of Melissa.  It was taken in the middle of Liverpool, three months before she was diagnosed. I walk past and look at it, maybe twenty or thirty times a day. Every so often she looks back and the reality of what has happened washes over me and I become consumed with grief.  I thought of moving the picture, but firstly I don't want to and secondly, if it wasn't a picture that triggered the emotion, it would be something else.  I want another chance.  I want to go back to two years with the hindsight I have now, because this time we'd get it right and we'd beat the disease.  We'd win and Mel would be ok. 

Recently my sister contacted me with the news that she was pregnant and I was going to be an uncle again.  My first reaction and that of Julie was to burst into tears and we both said "No, this can't be right, Mel's not here".  Obviously we are delighted for my sister, but to us it felt wrong, because Mel can't share the news.  Mel loved children and loved my sister's two girls. Now there's going to be another child in the family and she's not here to share the joy and that's not right.  A happy piece of news and I felt as though I'd been on the receiving end of a knockout punch . Grief strikes yet again  It's always there, bubbling under the surface and the triggers keep coming, sometimes big, sometimes small, but always there, just waiting to hit us.  If only I could find a way of forgetting the illness and I could just remember the good things.  We don't want to feel this way, but we can only control so much of our emotion.  We can only push the tide back for so long before with one mighty wave it drowns us.

If I've learnt anything in the time since Melissa died it is that there is no wrong way to grieve.  We do whatever we need to do to get through the most horrific of times.  Times that will be with us until the day we die.  Nothing prepared me for it, even knowing Mel was going to die didn't help me prepare for the grief.  I was focused on the fact that Mel was still living, rather than the fact she was dying.  I can remember a couple of times trying to imagine what life would be like after she had gone, but I couldn't.  Try as you might, you cannot imagine that amount of hurt and sadness.  It only exists when you've lived through it.  I now deal with the side effects of the grief (depression, etc) a lot better than I did and that helps, but it doesn't stop the hurt.  You will notice that I don't use the word "cope" . I don't feel as though I cope.  I deal with.  Whatever comes my way, I deal with it.  Another misconception is that time heals.  Cuts and broken bones heal, losing a loved one to a horrible disease can never heal.  I believe that time gives you the ability to deal with the grief that comes your way, but it doesn't heal.

Grief is a form of disability, but it isn't treated as such.  When a person dies everyone has this sudden rush of grief like a wave crashing on a shore, but in time for most that wave rolls back to the sea... for those closest to the deceased though it takes longer to roll back, and those waves keep coming.  No one sees them, they assume that the person is 'coming to terms' with things, that 'time is healing'.  The bereaved person is left with this overwhelming condition that for most of the time, no one can see or understand.  We don't want people to behave differently with us in our day to day lives, but what we did want was acknowledgement and understanding.

This isn't a definitive guide to grieving.  Each person is different and their experience may be nothing like ours.  I believe grief is unique to each person it affects.  What affects one person may totally avoid another, but recognising it is the point at where you begin to deal with it.  I still cry at the thought of not being able to share things with Mel.  I still wish she would come walking through the door, I still wish we could go to football together, I still wish that Julie, Becky, Mel and I could take off to the seaside or Alton Towers for the day, but I know it's never going to happen and that is beyond sadness, it's indescribable.