Michael’s Story

I was 19 years old when my Mum passed away. It was incredibly sudden and completely unexpected; she had an aneurism aged just 54. I got the news while I was thousands of miles away, studying in America at the time.

I still remember being told the news through a call from my Dad, when there was confusion about what had actually happened to Mum. I was told about the rush to get her to the hospital, and we all wondered whether she would be able to recover. It was an immediately isolating experience, hearing this news in another country. All of a sudden, I needed to pack up my things and book the first flight home, anxious throughout the trip about what I would return to. Mum never regained consciousness.

You can’t predict how you will handle grief

The loss of Mum threw our family into a new and unwelcome world. She was the life of the party, a woman with a warm and welcoming character who could connect with anyone. I can only speak for myself, but I struggled to adapt. I kept thinking about the major life moments that Mum would miss, unable to be there for graduations, weddings, or to see her grandchildren take their first steps.

I buried my grief, not wanting to complicate the lives of my friends or be seen as unable to support my family. This wasn’t asked, or even expected of me, and I was lucky to have a wonderful support network which helped me through. But that didn’t stop me from hiding how I was feeling, only for my grief to be expressed in glimpses over the next few years in rare but emotionally draining episodes. It wasn’t healthy, and it wasn’t resilience, it was mainly avoiding the reality entirely for as long as I could.

It was a long, hard road to come to terms with my Mum’s passing. Looking back, I wish I had done more at the time to try and understand my grief through a service such as Cruse. Ultimately, I chose to let time do its work, and while I eventually built the necessary resilience to process the loss and accept what it meant for my future, it is not what I would recommend to others experiencing their own grief.

Each bereavement has its own impact

My next experience with bereavement came during the pandemic, as it did for many. This experience was due to a close friend’s suicide. Olly was one of the most intelligent people I have ever met, unfailingly kind and deeply curious. Losing someone to suicide can often bring an additional layer to a bereavement, for me it was a feeling of guilt that there was more I could have done to change the outcome.

The experience of losing Mum gave me a pathway for handling this bereavement better, but it remained another shocking loss further complicated by the pandemic. Not being able to see our mutual friends or attend the funeral due to lockdown restrictions made mourning a much more complicated process, a feeling I’m sure shared by anyone who lost loved ones during those difficult years.

Losing our friend Olly taught me that each loss is unique, and that just because you may have experienced grief before it does not mean that you are any less deserving of support and understanding.

Managing my grief

My relationship with grief has made me realise that there is never a bad time to talk to someone, anyone, about your loss. Speaking through my bereavements with family and friends over the years has enabled me to accept grief as part of my life and move forward with the memory of those lost as inspiration.

My experiences, while unique, will be familiar to millions across the country. Bereavement and loss are unavoidable facts of life, and while this should bring some comfort as a collective experience, for too many people the impact of a bereavement is isolating, destabilising, and frankly terrifying. It represents a painful unknown and there is no choice but to adjust as best and as quickly as you can.

Cruse’s work is vital to helping people to navigate this unknown. If you are reading this and think their services could benefit you or someone you know, please do not hesitate to reach out for support. I wish I had known about Cruse when going through my losses, and I know the service would have better helped me to reach my current understanding of my grief and my own personal way of processing those experiences.