A Grief Shared

It has now been over a month since my dad passed away from Covid-19.

I lost my mum a few years ago, so I have a little experience of grief. I learnt that the grief process is different for everyone. That there is no right or wrong way to feel or act during the days, weeks and months that follow a loss. That being said, grief during CoronaVirus is different. Not harder, because losing a loved one is hard no matter what the circumstances, but it is complicated. It doesn’t follow the normal patterns and the differences make themselves known before the grief process even starts.

I was fortunate in that I got to see my dad on the day he died. Once it became clear there was nothing more that could be done, the hospital arranged for me to visit for a short while. Prior to that, I hadn’t seen my dad for more than 3 weeks, and even then it had been through a window. It had been even longer since I’d last hugged him.

I called the hospital every day for an update on his condition. I was kept well informed by the nurses and doctors. But not being able to visit, not being able to see for myself created a distance that wouldn’t have existed under normal circumstances. There was a separation, a feeling that it wasn’t really happening. My brain not wanting to believe what my eyes couldn’t see.

When I was finally able to see him, I needed to wear full PPE gear. I could hold his hand and talk to him, but I couldn’t kiss him goodbye. I am so grateful that I had the chance to see him, but it was restrictive, it wasn’t how it should have been and his death a few hours later seemed surreal.

I have questions. Many of which will go unanswered because this is such an usual and unprecedented situation. The experts, the doctors and nurses who we can usually look to for guidance just don’t have the answers at the moment. They are doing an amazing job, but they are dealing with something that is as new to them as it is to us. We will all become wise in time, but for now, there are unknowns that make moving forward more challenging.

In the time since my dad died I have received cards full of kind words, flowers and gifts. It is comforting to know how many people cared for him and how much support I have. However, I haven’t been able to receive hugs, cry on shoulders or share my grief with those who care. I hadn’t realised how important a part of the process this is. How much it helps, even though it may be hard. To see other people’s emotion, your sadness reflected in their eyes, saying the words out loud, talking face to face about him, about feelings. How necessary it is to share grief in order to come to terms with it.

Our isolation life means we haven’t really seen anyone. Harsh as it sounds, my dad is yet to be noticeably missing from our lives. In normal times he would be absent from the viewing gallery at my children’s swimming lessons on a Saturday. I would have walked by the coffee shops in the town where we both lived, peering to see if he was in there with his soya latte and book. The whole world seems like a strange place, the situation like something out of a film. It’s easy for my brain to put it all down to a bad dream. To believe that none of this is real.

In a couple of days, I will go to his funeral. It will be immediate family only. So many people who loved and cared about him will not be able to say goodbye or pay their respects. We will not be able to share memories, talk about happy times or hear tales of the good old days from people we may never have reason to see again. I will see my brother there, but I will not be able to hug him. The only other person who understands exactly what I am going through and I will have to remain 2 metres from him as we say goodbye to our dad.

All these small parts that make up the bigger picture of grief are missing for us, and others in the same situation. I feel that Covid has created a distance, a confusion between what we have learnt to expect and the actual reality of the here and now. It has brought about a disruption to the normal order of things, the grief process unable to help heal in the way it should. It has created a false environment, all of us in our own separate bubbles, living our own strange lives. A reality that just doesn’t seem real. Perhaps it’s all just too much strangeness at once for my brain to deal with

You don’t get over the death of a loved one. There’s no such thing as closure when it comes to loss. Grief doesn’t just end one day, it’s something you learn to manage, to live with. The shock and the sharpness of hurt fade over time, but they never really leave. The sadness, anger, frustration and confusion will rise and fall and hit me when I’m not expecting it. But I know that life will go on. I also know that returning to normal post Covid will not be the same for us as it is for others. That at some point the enormity may hit me, it will suddenly become very real. Perhaps I will have to grieve all over again, in the more usual way, and hope that the support is still there. There will come a time when my dad is so very noticeably absent from my life, when I will look for him, but only see an empty space.

My dad was a lovely, kind and gentle man. He loved my mum, his children and grandchildren fiercely. He lived a good life and gave my brother and I a wonderful childhood. I always felt loved and I know he was proud of me, because he told me, often. Him and my mum have given me so many beautiful and happy memories. Together they taught me so much about life, love and the type of person I want to be, the type of person I continue to strive to be. I get comfort from knowing he is back with my mum, the love of his life, his soulmate. Our loss is their gain. This is what I will remember, when the days are tough. I shall refuse to think of him as a statistic or a victim of this virus, because he was so much more than that. I will not think of all we have lost, but all that we gained in having had him at all.