On Grief

When we lose someone we love, this is what happens.

A bubble immediately envelopes us; we are insulated from the outside world, the shock of what has just happened bounces around the inside curves of our new world; the outside world echoes hollow and ever-more distant in the distance.

We live inside that bubble…for minutes, hours, days…years.

But eventually the bubble bursts and we are left alone and blinking as the world returns, real, loud, hard. And, for a while, we feel alien and disconnected from everything around us.

And it feels wrong. Inside the bubble, all that mattered was our loss; the crushing, grinding, raw emotions of our grief. Back in the outside world we then find ourselves, none of that seems to matter. The world looks unchanged when, in reality, it has been forever changed.

Why can’t anyone else see it?

And this is what you must remember: Whatever the world looks like, it has been changed. It is no longer the place it was, solely because someone you loved, who once held up their small portion of your life – they’re forever gone.

They should be mourned and missed – the gap they have left is real and must be acknowledged, however the world outside the bubble seems to deny it.

Know your grief is real and proportionate. Know the loss is immense and that the person is irreplaceable. Let yourself feel these realities. And, as you move on with your life, step by step, day by day, carry that understanding with you, a small weight to remember your love.

Nick Cave wrote this about losing his son recently: it’s quite something.