A couple of years back in 2017, I lost my grandad very suddenly to stage IV lung cancer. He was here one moment and gone the next. Throughout my life I have lost people and family members. But I have never lost anybody that I was as close with. I have to admit that over the past 3 years, I have not dealt very well with my emotions. Dealing with grief was something that I was clueless about how to deal with, so I wanted to write you this post. How I am trying to move past this time in my life. And hopefully help out other people if you are also going through something of a similar situation.
The relationship which I had with my grandfather was just incredible. It was unlike anything that I shared with other members of my family. We just got each other. From a very young age he was my best friend. I spent every single weekend with him. Whether it was building something with him in the garden. Plucking pheasants with him in the kitchen. Or watching football with him on a Sunday at the local park. He was just my pal. As I got older, he was the person that I leaned on for everything. During his last hours in hospital, he called me to him because he knew what was happening. He was so worried about how hard I would take it compared to his own children and my cousins who were his other grandchildren.
He passed away a couple of hours after our conversation and I just went numb.
We got a call at 6am the following morning to let us know that he had passed away. Without even getting out of my pyjamas, I ran downstairs, grabbed my car keys and raced my way through the town in order to make my way to my nan. When I arrived, she was a broken woman and her heart was broken completely. I was still numb, and I didn’t feel a thing. I called the hospital to see what happened next. They said that he was in a private room still and we could go up to the hospital and say goodbye. My nan wanted to go with me because she knew what this was doing to me. My mum nor her siblings came with us because they could not bear to see their father like that, but I had to go with my nan.
We made our way to the hospital and walking into the room was truly heart-breaking, but there was still nothing upsetting to me, I was still numb.
The next few hours went by in a blur really. I called work to let them know that I wouldn’t be in. Next, began calling family members to let them know that had happened, how it had happened and that we would contact them about funeral arrangements. Full business mode was turned on and I kept myself busy by doing all of the admin that I didn’t want my nan to have to do. I spoke to the bank, pension companies, his car insurance, literally everything that could ever upset my nan, I dealt with in a couple of hours. I was numb, even after telling people time after time that he had died, I felt nothing.
That night, I slept for the best part of 20 hours, it was certainly the grief.
Not knowing what to do with myself the following day. I decided that I would just do what I would do on any other day and head into work. I got ready, got in my car and walked in and sat right at my desk. People were shocked to see me because they knew how close I was to my grandfather. That day I felt like I had lost my own father. There was no feelings or emotions there, I was just cold and numb. I just wanted to get on with things.
Only now, looking back do I realise how disrespectful this must have been to the other members of my family that I was just getting on with things like nothing had happened, but now I only realise that it was only because I was feeling things on such a deep and dark level, that there was no way to process my emotions in a normal way.
Even at the funeral, I felt nothing. I was a very cold and distant person for the longest time. I was willing myself just to take some time and grief for this man that I adored so wholeheartedly. But there was nothing inside me that could do it. The thing that finally brought my emotions to the surface, I accidently smashed a mug on my kitchen floor. My husband found me on the floor crying and it lasted for almost 2 days. The grief took over and I lost myself completely for weeks on end in an endless cycle of sadness, regret for not mourning his loss sooner and jubilation that I was the one that had so many wonderful memories with this man.
The reason why I wanted to write this blog post is because we are all so busy. I should have used the time following my grandfather’s death to process everything that as happened. Dealing with grief is incredibly difficult. Also, allow myself to wallow and be sad and not supress everything. I supressed my grief until I reached breaking point. Nobody teaches you what will happen when one of these devastating things happens. But my advice is just to take some time.