It's been a while since I posted anything, nearly two years in fact and it has been so long I had to reset my password, as apparently I changed it 3 months ago...........no I didn't, but I now have a super dooper make no sense password that I'll probably forget in about 2 days!!!
However, this is a post I have written many times in my head and it has taken many forms, but I have never managed to muster up the inclination to actually publish it. Two years ago I was preparing to travel to South Africa to meet my niece for the first time, and I had a wonderful time. But then on the day before I was supposed to travel home, my youngest sister finally succumbed to her terminal cancer. Of course the grief at the time was constant and raw, the slightest thing would set you off, but to run out the usual trite sayings; 'time is a healer' and 'it does get easier', are true, to a certain extent. Yes, as time progresses, the grief does get less raw and constant, so it does get easier, but what no-one really tells you, is that you think you are doing fine, and suddenly grief creeps up on you, and knocks you for six....again. It's a sneaky bastard.
Initially I did a lot of crying in the car...........always interesting, blurred vision while traveling at speed in a metal projectile, but that has lessened as time has gone on. There are the sleepless nights, or at best the nights of broken sleep, the restlessness, the not knowing what you want to do, cannot settle at anything, irritability.............it all comes and goes, without warning or explanation ........ apart from the broken sleep, that's been pretty constant!!!
I then graduated from crying in the car, to crying on the bus ............always good for the self esteem and thank good that seemed to be a mainly summer affliction, so I could hide behind dark glasses. The becoming emotional at the silliest, stupidest thing; music, newspaper articles, videos, films, you name it. The rational, sane part of me recognises the depression symptoms, but what do you, see the quack and get a load of pills, and that is not really the answer either.
Every time I thought or spoke about my sister, the tears would come, but over time this has got better and most of the time I can remember her without turning into a blubbering wreck. Yes, there are still some bad days, but on the whole, I have progressed. There are many things I regret, mainly that we weren't really that close in later life. Partly with was due to her moving to South Africa when she was 13 (I was 23), so if we were doing well, we saw each other once a year after that. As she, and I, grew older, we had very different tastes and beliefs, and if the truth be know, nothing really in common, other than blood. She had her demons, and at times they threatened to overwhelm her, but just when she was getting her life back on track, finally getting herself sorted, she suffered the cruellest of blows, terminal cancer, before the age of 30.
Now I find myself getting upset a stupid irrational things, seeing a beautiful view, and thinking she will never get to see that. That she never had to chance to get married. She'll never come home........to England. In a way, I have mastered the dealing with of the grief of her not being here, but I am still struggling with regret, the regret of things she will never do or see, the regret that we had grown apart and I will never know her better.
And then if this was not enough, a very close friend, who had fought her own demons for a very long time, finally could face the fight no more, and in early July came the news she had committed suicide. I went that work that morning to have message from a mutual friend, asking if I had spoken to her. Not in last couple of weeks, though we had been messaging about a new job opportunity she had, something she had been excited about when I had seen her about a month previously. I sent her a quick text to ask how she was, though little did I know that I was already too late.
Being in the job I am, and the fact that it was on 'our patch' the dread and suspicion worsened all morning. Every call I made was met with stonewalling and 'we'll let you know as soon as we hear anything'. The final call I made, told me all I needed to know 'Someone is coming to talk to you' . And here I go again, the roller coast of grief. back to crying in the car, the sleepless nights, and again the guilt, the feeling that I was a rubbish friend because I did not see the signs, that I was not there for her. Again, the same and rational part of me tells me that when a person gets to the stage that they want to kill themselves, and actually go through with it, there is often very little you can actually do, but that does not stop you wanting to try, and feeling guilty because you weren't able to try.
So yet again, when I thought that I finally had grief under control the little bastard has climbed out of his box and is giving me another battering.
