I have never written a blog before, but I usually read them every day. I haven’t read them for a month, because on 28 September my big brother died, 32 days short of his 62nd birthday. It seems that when I need the posts more, I don’t read them. It’s as if I need to punish myself.

Both of my parents are dead, dad more than 20 years ago, also young. Mum just four years ago, next month. I have heard grief described as a wave, over time it reduces to lapping at your feet most of the time, but every so often, it will engulf you. For me it does, but, I certainly didn’t expect the pain I feel at the loss of my brother. Most of my feelings towards my brother were frustration, unachieved potential, fallen from the pedestal that as his little sister, I had placed him. But I feel like I’m trapped in one of those huge waves of a winter storm that hurls itself over the sea wall, over and over again.

In my rational mind, I know that that this too will pass, but, I almost feel guilty at the surprise to the pain, I feel. There were only the four of us. It’s like they’ve all gone and left me, which taps into that childhood fear that I wasn’t enough. Loss is one of those human conditions that none of us can avoid, yet all around us the world continues to turn.

I also know that I should be kind to myself, look after myself, but those what’s the point questions keep ambushing me. The only way through a storm is to weather it. As the quote at the end of Mary’s blog (28 October 2020) said “You simply have to put one foot in front of the other and keep going. Put blinders on and plow right ahead." George Lucas

Annie

A Moodscope member.