SIBBS Newsletter, Winter 2020

SIBBS Newsletter, Winter 2020 | www.tcf.org.uk 9 Instantly the adrenaline hit, even now, remembering that moment I can feel it again in the pit of my stomach. I immediately got out of bed and answered the phone. I was looking out the window into the shabby student garden. “Hi Mum” I said. There was a pause on the phone, and then she said, “I don’t know how to tell you this, but Dom’s dead”. Dom had died in the night from a pulmonary embolism, he was twenty-four. To be writing this article, a year older than my brother ever got to be, still seems surreal to me. It has been four years this October since Dominic died, and yet I feel no closer to comprehending what those words truly mean for me and my family. Recently, I’ve struggled with trying to answer why that is, why I still find myself thinking ‘it can’t be true, it can’t have happened’. Is it the trauma of the shocking situation? Was it the way I found out, miles away from my family? Or was there something I should have, or should not have done in those initial days and weeks after his death to ‘come to terms’ with the situation? The latter question, being the only one that had been in my control, was the one I clung on to. In the darkest days when grief would rip through everything with a never-ending relentlessness, I would beat myself up. ‘You went back to University too soon, you distracted yourself, you haven’t cried enough, you didn’t give yourself the time you needed’. An endless loop of self-criticism and regret, which wasn’t helped by the friends who voiced their advice for me; perhaps I wasn’t coping well, perhaps I should think seriously about getting help, perhaps even, what I was feeling was abnormal. Finally, it all made sense - had I failed at grieving? If I have failed, then how can I succeed in grief? Presumably, it is impossible to equate grief and success, yet what comes to mind are the terms I often hear such as ‘strong’, ‘healed’ or ‘moved on’. To me, the grief I have makes me feel anything but that, and in truth, why should I aspire to be strong when the world as I knew it turned upside down? I’ve decided that I don’t care. I refuse to be any of the things our society wants grievers to be, to make it easier or more bearable for them. I’m surrendering to grief and vulnerability. I am not strong, I am grieving, and that’s ok. I have not healed, I am hurting and that’s ok. I cannot and will not move on, I will take Dominic with me into my future, and that’s ok. We can all feel however we want to feel in grief – my relationship with my brother was unique, and my grief will be too. “ “ I am not strong, I am grieving, and that’s ok. I have not healed, I am hurting and that’s ok