I sometimes feel that all I am writing about on here lately is sadness and grief, but this is slightly different.
I am part of a research group for people who have had Stage 3 melanoma, and our first meeting was last week.
There are seven of us in the group and it was really interesting listening to everyone’s stories. Every person’s experience has been very different, while still having the same underlying journey – for want of a better word.
As we were talking, something someone said really struck me. It actually had nothing to do with melanoma, but it made me think about Ian, the boys, and the different ways we have all been coping since he passed away.
I have been incredibly grateful for my friends and the support they have given me since Ian’s passing. People have been there for me, checked in on me, listened to me and allowed me to talk when I needed to.
But I suddenly realised that the boys don’t necessarily have those same supports.
People do check in with them and ask how they are going, but they don’t really talk about their feelings or about how they are coping with the loss of their brother.
And that is the key.
As much as I lost my son, they lost their brother.
Ian was my talker. He talked about anything and everything — his thoughts, his feelings, his annoyances, what was happening at work, where he wanted to travel, or whatever else was on his mind. We always had that in common. He would come around every week and we would talk non-stop.
The other boys are different. Neither of them has ever been one to openly show their feelings or talk about them in quite the same way.
Bren, in particular, keeps very much to himself – and that is okay. It doesn’t mean he isn’t feeling things; it just means I need to be more aware of when he might need to talk, or simply need a little more of my time. We can quite happily go all day in the same house without speaking much, so sometimes that connection needs to be more intentional.
Lachlan is a talker, but not in the conventional way. He will talk in great depth about something that is concerning him, but often in a roundabout way without actually talking about the thing he means. He talks his way around what is worrying him rather than directly about it. Either that or he asks the same questions – over and over, just in a slightly different way.
He is also a worrier, so sometimes I need to read between the lines and work out what he is really asking. Then I can reassure him or explain something without necessarily having to make him talk directly about it.
The difficulty is that because Lachlan talks so much, it can be very easy to switch off occasionally! I am realising that I need to listen a little more carefully, because somewhere amongst all those words there may be something he actually needs me to hear.
And perhaps that is what yesterday’s meeting made me realise.
Everyone grieves differently. Everyone reacts differently.
Sometimes we assume that the way we grieve — or the ways of grieving that we recognise – are the only ways. We notice the person who cries, the person who talks about the person they have lost, or the person who openly says they are struggling.
But grief doesn’t always look like that.
Sometimes it is talking. Sometimes it is silence. Sometimes it is worrying about seemingly unrelated things. Sometimes it is needing company without conversation. And sometimes it may look as though someone is simply getting on with life.
There are probably as many ways of dealing with the good and the bad things that happen to us as there are people.
There is no right way or wrong way.
There just is.
And just as there is no right way to grieve, there is no timetable for it either.
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