Bearing The Unbearable: Growing From My Grief

I estimated that the last vestiges of light drained from the blackened sky on 28^th January 2022 at six o’clock. This is the time that I believed my son decided to take his life. He was only eighteen. That was a Friday and on Monday morning I wrote to him and told him that I did not know how I was still alive and bearing The Unbearable. Of course, when you write to someone, the best part is receiving a letter back from them, and three days later I wrote the letter that I imagined Reuben would have written to me after he died.

Two and half years on, I still write to Reuben and I will write back from him, not as often as I did at the beginning, but still it is something that I do to clarify the gamut of emotions and thoughts that whirl in my head and heart. The letters that are from me, usually start with deep sadness, regret, sorrow and despair. They are spotted with tears, but they tend to end with a feeling of gratitude and privilege for having the precious years that I had with him. The letters that I write from Reuben usually offer me advice. Sometimes they are funny and encourage me to follow my own path in finding ways to work with my grief, problems and any family issues.

Nature has also mothered me in my grief. She offered acorns from an ancient oak tree that watched over Reuben. This mighty tree is a symbol of wisdom and strength. I imagine a part of him is imbued in the acorns. I gathered them up in the first autumn of his passing and planted them in his grave. Three precious young seedlings have grown. I will give one to my parents who live in Sligo. My Dad will transplant the young seedling next to the oak that was planted when Reuben was born. It will be rooted beside the three sibling oaks of his younger brother and sisters and in the company of the three Douglas Fir who are for his Canadian cousins.

Trees grow and change with the seasons and like my grief, they offer a different perspective on life with each new season. I come to each season a slightly different person from the previous year. I am changing with my loss, but I am growing from it too, just like Reuben’s seedlings. My son enjoyed cooking and had a heightened sense of smell and taste, an autistic superpower that had its pros and cons.  So, I have also planted oregano, strawberries, lavender and rosemary in his grave, so we can still share food with him at our table. 

In the first year that he died, I revisited the place where he died on his birthday on the 30^th of March. I trampled along a fast-flowing river and turned up a hill. I paused at the place where I was told of his death less than two hours after he died. My world fell away. I now think of Yeats’ line, “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”. I curled up like a baby. I cried and raged into the wet grass and the musky scent of the soil. I remembered whispering to the Earth to hold me for I was sure I might as well have been shot out to space and obliterated forever. Three months later, I climbed up the grass tufted hill towards a rolling green esker that sloped downwards towards a vast and quiet field. As I drew closer, I saw a carpet of white anemones under the oak. The delicate white flowers were nowhere else to be seen, and I could have sworn they looked in the shape of a person sleeping.  I have many stories of nature offering me gifts like this. I believe that when we grieve, we are more attuned to these signs in our lives than ever before. We are seeking our loved ones, so we notice and cherish these precious details that are presented to us. Another beautiful story was when I bought a framed picture of pressed seaweed. I was drawn to it because it was in the shape of an oak leaf. The artist told me the seaweed was called Sea Oak.  I brought it home and I looked on the back of the frame.  My heart leapt when I saw that the Latin name  Phycodra Rubens.

Grief is a vast all-encompassing human experience. Whilst it usually begins when a person dies, it also permeates the memories of when your loved one first came into your life, my heart still breaks not only for the devastation I felt on the day my son died, but also the elation I felt on the day he was born. I am still not yet a thousand days into my grief, in fact it is 944 days today as I write this and there will be many more days I will miss him until we are both united in the Great Beyond whatever or wherever that may be. However, I have also found that I do not have to wait until I die to feel connected to him, I can find him in many ways whilst I am alive. It is with nature that I have found myself most profoundly aware of him. It is the trees, wind, lakes and our pet cats, Eddie and Betty and of course my family that Reuben feels most alive to me.   

I hear his voice in the letters I write from him. The letters I write to him start with sadness, turmoil, and feeling utterly bereft. When I come to write the last paragraph, it is always filled with gratitude for knowing this extraordinary person borne to me, and by whatever forces be they genetic, social or psychological, he left by his own timing. Reuben also left us a letter before he died.  The last line, he gave us was, “I hope that this does not tarnish your souls”. I hold onto those words like a talisman, particularly the word “hope”. He left us the word hope and it is for me to do the best I can with this seed.  So, I did exactly what we are meant to do with seeds, I planted it.

It is said that when a loved one dies a part of yourself dies as well and this has been true for me. The Ruth that was the mother of Reuben when he was alive could not continue, she was not able for the burden of sorrow that had to be born. As with all endings new beginnings arise, and so too came a new version of myself. The person I am now is middle-aged woman who has embarked upon a Master’s degree in Applied Neuroscience, and attends HUUG support groups, gets excited about nature. My grief is young and vulnerable like a child. It used to cry often and just like a child it needed nurturing and support from more experienced grievers like those in the HUGG groups. They listened and understood. I could also see that they had strengthened and grown in their grief, like the seeds of an oak tree.

There have been many things that have helped me bear The Unbearable and here I have written a small part of what has helped me.

My wish for you the reader, is that you too are left with the word ‘hope’ and the belief that in time, you can learn to grow from your grief.

Ruth, August 2024