McFilter

I'll Do My Crying Here Again

Today, two blogs that I read religiously have each announced the sad news that a close family member has died. With each my first thought has been to post a comment, but I've then fumbled over what to write in it.

Whatever I say won't bring back the loved one who is now strangely missed and yet also ever-present in the thoughts and minds of those left behind.

I can't say that I know how they feel, because I don't. I have been through a similar experience when Karen, my sister, was killed in a car crash five years ago, but all I know from that is how individual and different the grief is from one person to the next.

I could say that time is the great healer. That the pain dulls over the years, although it's always there ready to be exposed again if something scratches through the surface, although perversely it's as if they're almost alive again when it does.

But that's something you either believe or you don't. Some platitudes from somebody else aren't going to change that. Deep down you'll already know that you will get through it, somehow... even if the world won't ever quite be the same again.

I suppose the only useful advice I can offer is to talk about it more. To not worry about how you're seen to others. To be open about it.

I know this is easier said than done. I don't do it as much as I should. I've wanted to write this blog post for years now. In fact, in my drafts folder there's the time I tried to write it when I heard that Kev's brother had died, and another for the time when Ran told me about Eyal...

I just find it hard to communicate when I'm crying, which makes it tricky to explain that I don't mind people talking about Karen, or asking me questions about her, or how I felt at the time of her death, or how I feel now, or how the dynamic of the whole family changed, or... anything.

You see, getting upset isn't a problem, because it reminds me of how much I loved Karen and how much I miss her. So it should be celebrated that I react in this way, because the alternative - that I don't mourn her passing - is too awful to contemplate.