Grief is Lonely

Until May last year I had never really been alone in this world. I had often felt lonely or had that isolated feeling or even a desire to just be left to have some time to myself, but I had never actually, physically, completely been alone. And it’s terrifying.

Until David died in December 2019, I had never even lived alone, despite being left by two husbands. I moved out of my childhood home when I was 18 to go to teacher training college and never thought once of returning after I qualified. I’d met Paul, we’d got engaged and I was married at 22. We bought our first home, had the boys and lived away from my parents but fairly close to his. When he left us in difficult and sudden circumstances, I was the only adult in the home but the boys were there as well. Mark too left to go to university but came and went over the next ten years. When my second husband Jan left to work abroad, one or other or both the boys would be home and, again, I might have felt alone but I wasn’t actually physically alone. Then I married David, and, although I often wanted to have some time alone, a bath alone, go shopping on my own, David was usually by my side, steadfast, loyal and present.

If I were to be totally honest, I was totally terrified of what living lone might be like, the reality of it, but I convinced myself that it would be ok as Matt, being the home bird he was, wouldn’t be far away and it would be fine. It had to be. Those first four months after David died were ok. Sad, but ok. I kept busy, decorated, cleared out “stuff”, sorted paperwork and Matt was in touch many times a day. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Strange, but not as fearful as I’d anticipated.

Although that was the first time I had actually lived alone, there had been many times in my life I had felt alone. As a child, an only child for the first eleven years of my life, I often felt different and alone when others talked of brothers and sisters. When I first found out that my parents had a not quite perfect marriage. I thought I was the only teenager to be worried their parents would divorce. Many times at college I felt alone, even though I had the most amazing friends. I didn’t feel as though I fitted in and I tried even harder, which made me feel even more alone, so I ate alone, cried alone, walked alone and shut myself away occasionally.

When babies didn’t come along as planned, subjecting ourselves to fertility treatment seemed to isolate us from friends, who were on second babies before we were pregnant with our first. As a stay at home Mum the first time round, I felt alone and tried so hard to make sure I saw someone every day, even my mother in law, as a last resort. I felt alone when my second husband left for three months in Kazakhstan and even sometimes when he was home too. I struggled with the empty nest feelings most parents have as the boys left to make their own way in the world, but they were only a phone call, a text, a message away and I knew I would see them again.

Real loneliness started immediately after I received the devastating phone call to tell me that Mark had died 7000 miles away in Taipei. Matt and I travelled together but alone with the shock, the trauma, the fear. His different from mine and no words to bridge the gulf between us. For weeks, then months and eventually years afterwards we tried to find common grief, but I realised, in time, that his grief for Mark was his and mine was different. Our relationships with Mark were different and so the missing, the memories, the momentous loss were different too. Accepting that helped us to respect those differences and also helped us to talk and grow closer over time.

It was the same with friends, even bereaved parent friends, and those closest to us both and to Mark. Much of the grieving took place in our heads, in the lonely night spaces, when driving or shopping or listening to songs, out for a walk, lying by a pool in the sun or high up in the mountains. The loneliness struck, ebbed and flowed and took many forms. Being alone with my grief became my norm and I learned to walk with my grief quietly and with some sort of acceptance.

But, now, without David, without Matt, without any family, I am truly alone I have no one connected to my story or that of my boys. No one who carries my genes into the future. Who is my next of kin, or my emergency contact? Who will make final decisions for me or hold my hand when I’m dying. Who will go through my stuff and decide what happens to my clothes, books, photos, jewellery or the house? Huge decisions. I sort of don’t mind the day to day living alone, which was the biggest fear I used to have. Far worse is the emotional loneliness that happens all day, every day in my head. There is no one out there who misses and longs for my boys like I do, who can talk to me about them and share their memories, the highs and the lows. I do have some amazing friends, who truly understand grief and loss, who try to understand my loss, my grief and I’m grateful to each one of them. TCF have been my life line. They make me feel less alone, less isolated, less different in my grief. Bereaved parents reach out to me and reach into my grief to hold my hand tightly and I’m trying really hard to keep those vital connections present. Non bereaved friends also show me they love and care for me and will always be there for me even if they can’t understand completely.

But no one loves, misses, longs for, or remembers my boys like I do, no matter how hard they try, and it’s that which makes my grief feel so lonely.