How to Grieve

Just kidding - there is absolutely no right way to grieve. In words borrowed by my friend Jane on Day 3 of my own journey, “You’re in a Shit Club and you’re about to find out just how many people are in the club with you.”

And she was right. Working with SO many fertility and pregnancy patients, I thought I had an idea about grief and loss; how many people, what it looked like, but no. The bereaved often keep their stories in the shadows, but they are also quick to welcome a new club member.

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The bereaved understand the difficulty of landing back on earth after your baby has left you and want to catch you. It’s a passing of a baton in a way, but you never let go of the baton. The kindness from strangers in this Shit Club is so touching that even as you navigate the early days you might find yourself imagining Future-You helping others, whether in a big way or a small way. An introvert way or an extrovert way.

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You know one more thing? I hate the word bereaved. Before being a bereaved mother, I found it to be a little dramatic. Bereeeaaaved. And then when I became a bereaved mother, it felt so earnest. This word that sat on the outside of my experience, that I found to be so dramatic, became warm and inviting.

I understood the word so much, because suddenly I WAS a little dramatic. I WAS on the outer and experiencing something niche. It almost feels onomatopoeic in the moments that you’re sitting and staring, not so much when you’re weeping. How interesting that I hated the word bereaved for its drama, but have always loved the word “bereft” FOR its drama.

In the earliest days and moments of my grief, I felt that no one could understand my exact grief. I was like a teenager, my insides screaming, “NO ONE UNDERSTANDS WHAT I’M GOING THROUGH.” Even those with similar stories - the slight differences were enough to make me feel alone. So despite being in the Shit Club, I felt that I  needed to start my own Shit Club and find members with the exact same story.

Until I realised how lonely that club would be.

And I realised that I couldn’t make the pain or the memories or the emptiness go away. No amount of therapy, chicken soup or acupuncture would make me feel better, because only one thing would do that and it just isn’t bloody possible to have that one thing.

So, how does a person grieve?

We grieve by accepting that we can’t expect to feel the same way we did before. Sometimes that’s the grief. Not just the loss of our child, the hope we had, but the grief of not going back to the happy go lucky way we were (no one’s happy go lucky all the time, but you know what I mean). Matt and I like to refer to the past as, THE BEFORE TIMES. When we were sweet and naive. Oh, to go back.

We grieve the person. But we also grieve for ourself.

Oh the before times. The times before I started counting the days. Here, at Day 58, I still refer to the first week as Day 1, Day 2, Day 3… when each day was a lifetime, but screeched by at the same time. When time didn’t make sense.

Caz x