The Anniversary Effect

 I wasn’t going to write about this. I didn’t want to admit to it. I’m fine. Perfectly fine. There’s nothing to see here. But in the interests of being honest about mental health and what is normal and survivable and because I am genuinely fine I have changed my mind.

In trauma recovery there is a thing called the anniversary effect and it can completely knock you off your feet for a while. 

This isn’t a conscious remembering. It’s different, devastating and uncontrollable.

On the anniversary of my Dad’s death I might look at the calendar, check the sky for heart shaped clouds and have a moment of quiet remembering. It’s a good thing.

However, my Mum’s death is a traumatic event that happened to me and my brain approaches the anniversary in a different way. I hate that it does this. It makes it all about me and reminiscing is relegated to another day, another year, another lifetime. That causes guilt, which isn’t good for mental wellbeing either.

It starts about a week before. Sleep becomes more elusive. Eating is erratic. Emotionally I’m all mood swings and quivering anxiety. Focusing on anything is impossible. Lists, that have always been my friend, jump around the page and taunt me. I become a terrible teacher, a snappy housemate, a weepy wife. I say weepy but as I’m not really a crier this is what happened.

We were standing in the Long Suffering Husband’s shed. He’s finally finished it, except for the floor and getting the tools in. 

“It has only taken five years,” he says, “But I get there in the end.”

And tears appear in my eyes. A little sob escapes before I swallow it. 

He looks at me with tilted head and the look I hate. The one where I know he has seen that I’m not right, not myself and his face brims with concern. He steps forward to give me a hug and I cry. 

“What’s wrong with you?” he asks and I snap into anger, pull away, zip myself back up and say that I don’t know. And I don’t. Not then. I know that I’m not right, that I’ve been wobbly for a few days but I don’t know why. 

I have been putting things off. There’s an optician appointment to make, a birthday present voucher to use, which requires looking at a calendar and I realise that it is May and the anniversary effect is kicking in.

This is where my body mounts it’s own trauma response as a kind of memory party.

I’m assuming that anyone who has a trauma response has their own symptoms. Mine build. Difficulty sleeping turns to no sleep, first moving through panic waking, terrible dreams, unconsciously bruising myself at night and weird nighttime breathing. Not eating starts with a general nausea, an inability to swallow, stuffing comfort biscuits in to keep everything down then eventually vomiting for no particular reason. My contact lenses begin to hurt and my vision blurs to the point of everyone asking if I have new glasses. Constipation (too much information?) My brain decides it needs to focus on everything all at once and life becomes overwhelming as I develop a plan for world peace. I can’t look anyone in the eye. My palms are sweaty and my feet are cold. I want to run away but I don’t. I freeze. I go through life on automatic pilot, slowly, sadly, not fully engaging, wondering if I’m doing a good enough job of masking because if anyone notices and says anything I will run. I feel dirty. My hands get washed like I’m Lady Fucking Macbeth. 

The annoying thing is that I have been so much better lately. My broken brain has been healing.This PTSD has been EMDRed and yoga’d away. My walking, breathing, writing have all been slowly working their magic. So I was cross. 

Five years! I shouted into the void. 

Then, the day after the death-day anniversary my brain was light again. The fog had lifted and I was looking forward to things. And it is because of this lightness I decided to write this blog. 

The anniversary effect doesn’t cause a step backwards. It’s temporary and goes away again. It’s just your brain having a pity party. My brain has had to work very hard lately, so I can let it have a party once a year if it wants one. I’m not going to get stressed out by it.

If your brain is currently doing this then you have my sympathy because it’s not fun but you’ll get through it. 

Why Do Robins Sing in November?

I love the song, ‘I know why (and so do you),’ by the Glenn Miller Orchestra. I loved it, again, when Manhattan Transfer re-recorded it. It was very uncool to love Manhattan Transfer but love them I did.  I could never get the words right, though.
It is: Why do Robins sing in December?
         Long before the springtime is due?
         And even though it’s snowing, violets are growing,
         I know why and so do you.
I always muddled the month. As long as the month ends in ‘ber’ then there’s no reason to think that you have sung it wrong. True, it’s unlikely to be snowing in September but stubbornly that is frequently what my brain chose to sing, whenever I saw a Robin.

It was also a song that my parents liked (Dad more than Mum, I think). I remember having a conversation with my Dad about it when I was about nine or ten. It was December and it was snowing. We were walking back from Lake Meadows Park with our tea trays, red faced with exhaustion. My sister was about 4, in her cute little round, naughty phase. She was wearing a pink and white furry coat that had become soaked through as snow had stuck in clumps to it when she rolled down the hill. The hood was up, making her face seem even rounder, like some exotic bear that had been plucked from its tropical environment to spend winter in a British zoo. She had begun to grizzle. I was glad to go home, as I could feel my throbbing chilblains within my wellies. As we walked, we seemed to be serenaded by robins, sitting on bare beaches and Dad joined them in song.
I never quite grew out of my annoying ‘why phase’ and so I asked, “But why do they? They song says I know why and so do you but I don’t.”
Dad explained that Robins don’t migrate like other birds and are really sociable, loving to chat to people all year round.
“But,” he went on to say, “It’s a song about love. They sing because of love. All songs are about love.”

Grief is a thing with feathers, as Max Porter wrote and even when you think you are not actively grieving anymore, something can fly up out of the blue and make you catch your breath.
The jumper department of Marks and Spencer at Christmas, a song on the radio, walking past someone wearing your descended loved one’s perfume. Today, it was a Robin.

Before my parents died I was a firm believer in no afterlife.
“When you’re dead, you’re dead,” I would say harshly, “a belief in an afterlife is just for those who can’t accept death.”
Then when Mum died and I went a bit bonkers I had this thing about birds. If you’ve been reading my blogs before, you will remember the bird series. I started to think that psychopomps were a real thing and that the Greek myth of spirits coming back, as birds to guide people towards death might be true. We felt that my dad had chosen to be a very noisy, slightly angry Robin. As I trudged around the streets and footpaths in my traumatised state I spotted birds everywhere and wrote about them here.

I have been clearing my Mum’s art studio and put aside a couple of empty sketch pads to give to one of my pupils who loves art. An hour or two after she had left, her mum sent me some photos of her using the books already. Her first picture. A Robin.

Why do robins sing in November? I know why and so do you.

Resilience

Sitting in the sauna with my sister listening to two teenagers witter on about their lives, the rules for dating, boy codes and other incomprehensible subjects I realised that children have the language of dealing with their emotions but still have as little clue about how to actually cope with them as we did. It turns out their friend was, “totally triggered,” when her mate kissed her boyfriend and that even though another friend had slept with every boy at the party that was totally fine because , “she has so much respect for herself.” They all know the word resilience but when life throws a curved ball I wonder how many of them will actually be able to do it.

Resilience is one of the new fads in pop psychology. Schools talk about teaching resilience, even though that concept seems either cruel or impossible. Fans of corporal punishment will argue that people of my age were taught resilience at school. Teachers could stand you in front of the class and hit you for spelling a word wrong. They could throw missiles at you for talking, or send you to the headmaster for a proper thrashing. Oh, how we learnt to survive. Except that I suspect many of us didn’t. Just as how some kids will crumble under the pressure of constant measuring, testing and changing the goalposts that happens now. 

Maybe the lesson in resilience should actually be learning when to give up. I think of myself as a pretty resilient person, which is why my reaction to my mum’s death was such a shock. People who know me argue that I have been resilient (or stubborn) in refusing to let that PTSD thing beat me.  I just think I was lucky that I was able to find the right kind of help.  To get that help, I had to give up a little bit, though.  I couldn't have done it if I had gone back to work after my one week's bereavement leave. 

A report today says the our children are the safest but also the unhappiest. Children’s mental health is reported as the worst it’s ever been with many seeing no point in living but we can’t know that those very same suicidal children wouldn’t be the survivors if they were under threat.  But does that mean we should put people under threat to test them? Is it right to change what's expected of children in exams just to see who will survive?

I grew up in a family of fighters. My father, in particular, had a tough start in life. They were poor in the days before a social security safety net. A jam sandwich for tea was a good day. Both my parents sat with slack-jawed incredulity when anyone talked about the good old post-war days, as for them, they were times of huge struggle. But they survived.

When your parents have died one of the really hard things you have to do is sort through their stuff.  There are memories everywhere.

My mum was an artist and I have recently started the mammoth task of clearing her studio. It is filled with notebooks and sketchbooks that tell of her life, never mind all her artwork.There are inks I remember buying her for Christmas in the year that my Dad wrapped everything in a foot spa box as a joke (it didn’t go down well.), every type of paint you can imagine, and unidentifiable tools. There are books and magazines (dating back to 1972).

I was no good at art. My mum would laugh at my attempts and suggest that I took after Dad, who famously couldn’t even draw a cat. Growing up in a house full of art stuff was useful though. When I was put into a remedial handwriting group in senior school I was so mortified I spent every spare moment teaching myself calligraphy. (I told you I was stubborn) I remember Dad being impressed because as a left-hander who had been forced to write with his right his writing was awful. I remember him having a go but I thought Dad never gave up on anything.  However I found his calligraphy book.  There are times you just need to say :

Knowing you can’t do everything is a kind of resilience of its own.

Moving On

Now that I’ve finished reading the Brexit report and I’m fixed (so that the constant videos of the last moments of my mum’s life aren’t playing behind my eyes) it’s time to ‘move on’ and so I’m going to write some blogs that deal with uncomfortable truths about death, bereavement and grief. Today’s blog is about support.

After I’d written the fixed blog people told me their stories and said that it had been helpful to read. Other people had told me that they’d sent it to friends who were struggling with grief, or madness.
I was surprised by all of this, as I thought my experience was pretty unique. Obviously, I hadn’t given the details of those final images but my descriptions of how I acted with PTSD resonated with many people.

When life is difficult for someone the people around them want to help. It is hard to know how to help and even harder to know if you are able to.

The truth is that there are no rules. A psychological study has shown that there is no right thing to say https://doi.org/10.1080/01973533.2018.1509341  Things that helped me might not help someone else but I’m going to tell you  just in case those things are universal.

On Thursday I’m taking some friends out for dinner who were very supportive. We are going to celebrate my being fixed with sparkles, bubbles and food. Looking back, I realise how lucky I am, to have so many friends and family who care and did exactly the right thing for me. And also how lucky I am that there were so many others who tried to help and failed. I think of the Long Suffering Husband who failed at least 30% of the time but never gave up.

Most of the time, for me, when people failed it was because they were trying too hard. They wanted my pain to stop. They couldn’t understand it but thought they could. As soon as someone jumped to a conclusion I was lost. “I know exactly how you’re feeling,” they’d say and inside I would be    screaming. I think that whatever someone is going through it is totally unique and no one ever really  knows what it’s like to be inside their head.

“It’s because..” was another conversation starter that would make me curl up inside. This was terrible on two fronts. The first was that they were usually wrong but the second and more terrifying was the fear that they might get it right. When you are at your lowest and really struggling with something then the last thing you want is to be noticed.

“You should...” Oh help! This was the worst. Even if the advice that followed was good advice I generally couldn’t have heard it because it was framed in arrogance and judgement. There were bits of advice that were funny, like “You should eat more bananas.” (I’m still not sure why) and others that still hurt when I think of them now, like being told it’s time to move on.

I titled the blog ’moving’on because this is probably the least helpful thing, ever (in my opinion). In  an age where growth mindset is all the rage, resilience is taught as something you can have just by saying,  “get on with it,” and that anyone who can’t get over something is a snowflake (stupid term because snowflakes are amazing), this phrase is going to be said more often. The truth is that a person can’t always move on. I couldn’t and I am a pretty resilient person who has suddenly become a bit freaked out because the things she's always said are suddenly trendy.  Until the video images stopped playing behind my eyes there was no way of moving on. I was stuck. And even now, I am still bereaved. My parents have still died within 18 months of each other, I have still dealt with things no squeamish person should ever have to deal with and I feel forever changed. I have good days and bad days. This is normal. (I’m telling myself as much as I’m telling anyone else).

So, if people failed because they were trying too hard then would it be better that they didn’t try at all? No. No. Absolutely not. I have more respect for people who tried and got it wrong (even if I was hurt by their trying) than those who just didn’t bother. The loneliness of dealing with these issues is indescribable.

The connection between people is hard when you are struggling.  It's even harder if you are struggling with something that society doesn't like to talk about.  Death is still a big taboo, as is mental health and menopause.  Doing all three things together makes you a very difficult person to be around and you know it. 

The people who were really supportive for me didn't care about any of that.  They didn't need to talk about those things.  They just let me know that they were there.  They would swim alongside me, or invite me for coffee, or send me a text to ask how I was and be happy with my answer of 'OK'.  They talked about other things and didn't get cross if I zoned out.  They didn't hug me (that might be a personal thing).  They didn't give up. They told me their stories without assuming that mine was the same.  This, I think, is important.  Other people's experiences help you work out what you might need.  The more I heard about people's experience of grief the more I realised that I was in a different place.  A conversation with a chap in a coffee shop, however, who had been a soldier and told me about his PTSD did make me feel much less alone as did the story a dog walker told me about their mother who had never been the same after nursing their grandmother through cancer.  We should talk more about death. 

One of the things that really kept me going through the early darkest days was that every morning I would get up to a message from a friend that contained a gif of the Pope doing something strange.  It made me laugh and if someone can make you laugh when everything seems pointless then they are doing really well.

Fixed

I’m probably about to wildly over share but I’m so excited that I just don’t care.

I have been stuck in a living hell for the last six months. Not to over dramatise the situation but it has been really awful.

The trauma that I suffered because of mum’s death is more complicated than I want to go into but it left me with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This meant that my brain was broken. For a long time I couldn’t close my eyes or look at my hands without replaying the traumatic images in my head. Smells would leave me being unable to breathe. I couldn’t sleep and if I did I would wake gasping for air and gripping my upper arms hard enough to bruise them. I lost my appetite and felt permanently nauseous. I was terrified of seeing people just in case they said anything that caused the images to replay. I couldn’t watch television or cope with loud noises. My brain felt like it was constantly fizzing. As time went on, I felt depressed and defeated by the situation and wondered how I could go on.

People were sympathetic but because I couldn’t explain what was really happening for fear of replaying the images, their sympathy only isolated me further. When people said that it was understandable because both parents had died so close to each other I felt like a fraud. You see I’m a bit hard. I don’t cry. I don’t have an issue with death.

Instead of normal but extreme grief I have been dealing with a constant video playing behind my eyes that left me feeling useless, out of control and not safe.

Some people would give up, drink, take drugs and pull the duvet over their head. I used to fight giants so I walked, drank water, did yoga, swam, ate three meals a day whether I fancied them or not and practised mindfulness.

As a psychology geek, I already knew that the therapy for PTSD was EMDR. (It’s always important to fight acronyms with acronyms) and when I told the consultant at the hospice what had happened and how it had turned me into  ‘Lady F-ing Macbeth’ (“Don’t worry,” said my sister after, “pretty sure that’s her middle name.”) she confirmed that EMDR was the way to go.

It is only available privately, so I found wonderful Helen at the Silver Street Clinic. I’ve had eight sessions with her, with only three of them being EMDR.  In the first we talked about what had happened and how I was feeling. The second gave me strategies for dealing with the anxiety symptoms. The third and fourth were EMDR sessions, after which I felt able to go back to work. The images were mostly under control and we locked them in a box.  In the fifth we talked about my difficult return to work but decided that it was alright to stop treatment.Then I cleaned my mum’s kitchen cupboards and the videos started to play in my head again along with a return to bruising myself in my sleep.  Those images refused to stay in the box.  Session six was to assess what had happened and a few more coping strategies. On the seventh visit we got distracted talking about death in general and things that can’t be changed. On Tuesday I had the EMDR session that fixed me. The images came out of the box, we turned them black and white and dealt with the difficult emotions in a safe way.

Everyone has heard of PTSD in terms of soldiers coming back from war. We know that it’s an anxiety disorder caused by witnessing traumatic events.  It's not so common in every day life.  Mostly, us humans are very efficient at dealing with seeing an isolated trauma.  Our brains have mechanisms which allow us to file the event away in a safe way.  Much of this work is done while we are asleep.  We dream and our brains relieve the trauma in different ways.  Usually, while we sleep the amount of nor-adrenaline released is reduced and so relieving the trauma in REM sleep is safe.  In patients with PTSD this mechanism of the brain in broken and instead even more of this anxiety inducing chemical is released. 

I referred to the time from Mum's diagnosis to her death as the Great Elephant Wars of 2018.  The whole thing was like fighting the proverbial elephant in the corner.  Something that you shouldn't really mention but had to constantly fight. It wasn't a real war, though and I was furious at myself for being so weak to have been this troubled by the situation.  Helen explained that your brain is like a filing clerk and because of  how busy I was (still fitting in concerts, clubs and pupil exams alongside wanting to care for Mum and grieving Dad) my filling clerk was overwhelmed.  It had an over full in-tray and was really beginning to panic about ever getting on top of the job. Then the traumatic death occurred generating a black sack full of paperwork but there was no room in the in-tray so my brain and it's desk got buried in papers to file.  It broke.

EMDR (Eye Movement De-sensitisation and Reprocessing) therapy works by simulating what your brain does during dream sleep.  Your eyes are moved from side to side while you visualise the trauma. You can follow a light, be tapped on the knees or have beeps played into alternating ears (which worked best for me).  A skilled therapist takes you through the visualisations and asks you what you are feeling and where.  They use techniques like turning the image black and white which help to keep you feeling safe.  You can stop at any time you want.  It is like some sort of voodoo magic. 

I came out of the last session and knew I was fixed.  I felt hungry for the first time in six months and realised that I didn't feel sick anymore.  I could go into Marks and Spencers without my heart pounding in my chest (I bought myself a pain au chocolate because I fancied it).  There was a spring in my step and I noticed that I felt happy.  Since then I have been able to watch TV and sit in the staff room. My head feels lighter and the Long Suffering Husband has commented that I have lost the 'haunted' look.  I can feel that my smile reaches my eyes.  I'm sleeping properly (except for Thursday night when I was like a kid at Christmas and couldn't wait to wake up and start the next day).  I have been bouncing all over the place and decided to write this blog and over-share just in case you hadn't noticed.

Cold Fish

I've never been a warm fuzzy kind of human: not someone you'd go to for a hug.  I'm the sort of person who gets called 'strong' or 'good in a crisis' but definitely not someone who 'wears their heart on their sleeve'. This probably makes me an odd kind of friend. 

Yesterday, I met a friend in London.  We haven't seen each other for a while and I kept thinking that people not like me might have hugged and I wondered if she was disappointed that we didn't or get drunk and take selfies, pouting over the top of our over sized Margarita glasses. I hope she wasn't and enjoyed what we did as much as I did.

Standing in the cold drizzle queueing at the TKTS office she asked me what I wanted to see.  I was only prepared to say what I hadn't seen and what I knew about the shows that were available.
"Big Fish.  That sounds interesting. What's that?" she asked.
"It's new.  It should be good, funny and sad.  It's a great film."
She hadn't seen the film but we settled on that one and went to Barrafina for lunch.

Barrafina is a Spanish Tapas bar in Covent Garden.  It has smart red bar stools, a shiny counter, waiters with proper Spanish accents that mean that they spit a little as they talk. You watch your meal being prepared and the vegetables and fish are on display.

It was delicious and your glass keeping filling with free fizzy water, which is my idea of a good time out, although I wasn't sure about being watched by the fish.  Then a big red prawn thing jumped. It was like a scene from the little mermaid.  We could almost hear the chef singing about poissons while Sebastian hid under a cabbage leaf. 

As we ate we talked and I ended up telling my friend all about the elephant. I didn't mean to. Just as I refuse to give him space on the blog I wasn't going to take him to meet my friend. However, just a few questions and I described him in full technicolour detail but as though he was sitting on someone else's blog and I was just watching him. I refused to give any of his histrionic emotions houseroom.  My friend apologised. "It's fine. I can talk about him now," I said going on to explain how he was effecting everyone else.  I also talked about my Dad's last few days and grief. I can't think it was the best fun she's ever had.

We had to run across Green Park so we didn't miss the start of the show. It was at The Other Palace Theatre in Victoria, which is quite like the Mercury in Colchester and we had front row seats, which give you a bit of a crick in the neck and make you fear that a giant might land in your lap. It was different from the film but not too much. It was still about the death of a parent.

At the interval my friend looked worried.  

"This probably wasn't the best thing for you to come and see, under the circumstances," she said.

I laughed. 

You've got to laugh.

I think you know you are doing okay if you can laugh.

Big Fish would make anyone laugh. It had some wonderful comic performances and a brilliant joke or two.

"They've crossed a Hippopotomus, Elephant and Rhino."

"What do they call it?"

"Hell if I know. (Helephino)"

Maybe the elephant is actually a Helephino.

A musical can't convey the weirdness as well as a film does but it does a pretty good job.  The songs, however, bring so much more emotion into it. Most of the theatre was sobbing or at least dabbing an eye. My friend thought that it could have sent me over the edge but being a cold fish it just made my cold a little worse.

When I got home the Long Suffering Husband asked me all about it. 

"It was really good," I told him, "It had some famous actors in it. I think the man who played the Dad was someone and the the circus man was Gene Wilder."

"Gene Wilder?" the LSH asked, "He died."

"No. He didn't die.  It was the other one who died."

The LSH explained that he meant Gene Wilder had died in real life. He said that he'd been one of the victims of the great 2016 celebrity cull. I didn't believe him, so he looked up who was in the musical.

Kelsey Grammer was the Dad and the person I thought was Gene Wilder was someone called Forbes Masson, who someone should discover as a comedy genius (if they haven't already)

Not Gene Wilder

If it had been Gene Wilder then they could have called it Big Cold Fish.

Porridge

"Trust you to notice," said someone at the funeral I was at yesterday, "You're going to blog about this, aren't you?"
I smiled in that way you do, with a fixed top lip and blank eyes, when you can't quite get your head round what someone is saying. I couldn't quite see how I could write a blog about porridge but after a heavy night's sleep and a long walk, porridge is all I can think about.

I'm like porridge at the moment. I feel bland, boring,grey and  full of lumps.  Sometimes I'm too hot; sometimes too cold; rarely just right. Existing feels like moving through porridge.

"That's perfectly normal," people have told me this week.  "It's what happens after the death of a parent." This is slightly weird for me. Being perfectly fine is usual but to be 'perfectly normal' is not something I'm used to and I've decided that if this is normal, you can keep it.

I don't feel normal.  In fact, I feel very different.  I don't really feel like me.

I've been to work and not cared. I have no interest in doing things properly. I spend my days wishing I could get home to do nothing. I'd like to sit on the sofa and watch rubbish TV, knit or read my book. I'm not interested in whether there are weeds at the allotment. I don't want to eat or cook complicated meals and am more than happy with an avocado. I don't care if children I teach have practised.The swimming pool seems too far away to bother. There are piles of ironing and last night's dishes are unwashed.  I'm not planning lessons or thinking about writing reports. I'm letting other people worry about getting the music ready for a concert the choir have agreed to.  I haven't been blogging because no body really wants to read porridge.

People tell me that this is a normal part of grief.

My Mum says that her emotions flit between anger and guilt.
"They are two of the seven stages of grief," I told her. "It's shock then guilt followed by anger."
"Seven?" she shouted down the phone. "You mean there's more to come? Great!"
Even by screwing my face up and beating my temples lightly I couldn't drag the other four stages up from the depths of my memory.
"I think the last one is acceptance," I said, eventually.

After I put the phone down, I decided to look it up.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, who did the initial work with terminally ill patients and wrote about it in a book called Death and Dying only had 5 stages. (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance) but this was later expanded to be appropriate to those suffering the loss of a loved one, or indeed any kind of loss (including divorce, redundancy or even the loss of a sports game).  They added  upward turn and reconstruction categories between depression and acceptance to make the number up to seven.

The only real stage I failed to remember was the depression one. Gradually getting better to get to acceptance are probably not stages we need to worry about.

I was wondering why I hadn't read much about the depression stage but I think I know now.  People don't write about it because they can't be bothered. It's boring to you, let alone anyone else.  It's the period when other people think you should be getting over it and moving on with your life. You don't want to think about anything. Sitting alone to reflect on your own, tedious private thoughts seems preferable.

The Long Suffering Husband hoped that after yesterday's funeral (of a friend) I'd be able to start to get back to normal. I wonder how he'll react when he discovers that this is 'perfectly normal' and that this porridge phase could last some time.

I don't know what to say

"I don't know what to say," is the sentence I've heard most often this week.

It's difficult to know how to react around someone whose parent has recently died. Offering someone your condolences sounds so formal and doesn't give any clues to what you are actually meant to do or say. The word must be from Latin: my musician's Italian gives me a clue because I know con means with and dolorosa is sorrowfully. How do you give someone your with-sorrows?

My mum and sister have a full time job of providing tea and cake for visitors who don't know what to say.

I have been distracted by a concert. The youth orchestra that was my Dad's idea and we started together seventeen years ago (17 - how is that possible?) had been booked to do a concert for the Mayor's charities. The Mayor had been very specific about how the audience should dress. It was to be black tie for the men and he knew how us 'ladies liked to dress up.' Our orchestra committee were confused about this because none of the females liked to dress up. Our secretary wanted a Minion costume but we had to rule it out because it had no mouth hole and we needed her to play bass clarinet. My dad suggested I dress as Charlie Chaplin and our percussion director wear a bunny girl outfit like Bridget Jones wore in the film. It turns out that ladies who like to dress up wear dresses are too tight, often with centre splits that show their pants,  witches capes, long gloves and ostriches draped around their necks. When dad was ill he was still talking about the concert and when he died, although the whole orchestra were devastated, we all knew he wouldn't have wanted it to be cancelled. It was difficult. The Mayor asked if he could say something about him and dedicate the concert to him and we agreed that the end of the concert would be better than at the beginning.

The Mayor didn't really know what to say either. The orchestra had played brilliantly, not forgetting anything that we had worked so hard on, the soloists were amazing and even I held it together. He told the orchestra how lucky they had been to be able to play a 'proper' concert for people who were dressed up and he went on to try to say something about dad but words appeared to fail him.

I understand how difficult it is. The day before the concert, I was worried about whether I could be with people. I made my apologies to my mum and my aunts, leaving them to drink more tea and eat more cake, to pop into school to see if I could be with "normal" people. They were a little offended until I explained that by normal I meant not grieving, although it's probably true that none of my family can be described as normal. This experiment started well: I was coping and then I suddenly felt a bit wobbly so I scuttled off to my friend's room. While we were chatting the two male teachers who share a name came in, carrying a box of paper. I looked at them; they froze, gave each other sideways looks and tried to back out of the room. They were hoping to put their paper in her bin, although I'm not sure why. They still hadn't acknowledged my presence out loud and realised as they were backing out of the room that they probably should do.
"Oh hi Julia," they said, as if they had just seen me. "Err, sorry about your dad."
"Err yes, sorry."
"I wasn't going to say anything but err sorry."
They backed to the edge of the door, turned and ran.
My friend and I looked at each other and burst out laughing.
It had cheered me up enormously and made me realise that I could cope being around people, especially those that didn't know what to say.

In fact, the most comfort I've had has come from the people who've said nothing. The Long Suffering Husband who sat with me in silence in the dark, made hot water without asking, brought crumpets because he's worked out that's all I'm eating. My son, who gives the best hugs. My daughter who didn't take her eyes off me during the whole concert.

The orchestra committee, who organised everything and sent rude messages about people called Richard. The orchestra who make me so proud. My friends who bought expensive concert tickets and stood with me at the start and during the reception, protecting me like live patronuses from the dementors.

Maybe that is how you are meant to do condoling: just to be together with your grief. You probably don't need to say anything.

The Rise of the Pintrest Funeral

I'm from a big family and in big families people die. A funeral was a reasonably common childhood occurrence.  Not every week, or anything, but often enough so that they seemed a normal part of life and not really that big a deal.

Now that I'm an adult funerals seem to be a very big deal.

The funerals of my childhood consisted of turning up at a house in a smart dress (Dad will have fetched his black tie from the back of the wardrobe), taking the flowers out of the car and putting them on the front lawn.  Then we would go inside and have a cup of tea, while grown-ups dabbed the corner of their eyes with proper handkerchiefs, until the funeral directors arrived.  These were always large, whistling men, with a twinkle in their eye and a wink for us children. I once asked one why he was so cheerful, in the circumstances and he shrugged and said, "The worst has already happened kiddo." We would then all bundle into our various cars and drive too slowly behind the hearse.

It was always raining.

At the crematorium we stood huddled under umbrellas while the men took the coffin out and we followed it in.  The vicar or celebrant said a few words, always getting some of the details wrong. We sang the Lord's My Shepherd (badly).  The coffin slowly disappeared behind some doors, into what I always imagined to be a dragon powered furnace.  Tears flowed, quietly, except maybe for an odd aunt who would have a full sobbing breakdown and a prayer was said. We stood up, shuffled out and went to the pub or back to the house for a glass of Sherry and a cucumber sandwich.  Aunts and Uncles would plaster you with unwelcome kisses, tell you that you've grown and everyone would agree that they should meet more often, "although, next time, in better circumstances." Better circumstances, like weddings, often ended in a fight but funerals were reasonably jolly affairs, with beer and reminiscings.  I quite liked funerals.

Now, as an adult, everyone I know who has organised a funeral seems to treat it like the event of the century.

 I thought, at first, this was because I wasn't posh enough.  Our family funerals weren't in church or attended by grown ups with degrees.  As a member of the 'good' school choir I did sing at a few funerals in church; the huge funeral for the girl in my year who was run over on her way home from school, the funeral for a teacher who had loved Fats Waller (so we sang Ain't Misbehaving), the funeral for an ex-headmaster and school governer, for whom we sang everything in Latin.  It still wasn't a huge performance.  The congregation sang The Lord's My Shepherd and the Vicar got some details about the person's life wrong.  Having the school choir there just meant that the hymns were in tune.  At a church funeral the shuffling outside was to wait for the immediate family while they stood by the big muddy hole in the ground in the rain.  I don't know if these people went to the pub, had cucumber sandwiches and a glass of sherry or hired the local stately home for a Pimms and Prosecco knees up because I always had to go back to school.

These days, everyone in the immediate family has to say something.  They deliver a witty, pithy, funny eulogy.  The children read a poem.  Musicians play a piece (I've lost count of the number of children who have asked me to write out Somewhere Over the Rainbow because, "It was Grandma's favourite song and Mum thought it would be nice if I played it at the funeral on my flute." Music is chosen to reflect the life of the person.  Gone are the days when everyone started crying at the the word 'lie' in the Lord's My Shepherd because that note was just slightly out of range for most normal human beings.  Now, I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles can be the hymn of choice (although probably not for a Millwall fan).  Coffins are brightly coloured and invitations are sent reminding people that Great Aunt Dotty was a happy soul and she would hate people to wear black.  The pub or a cucumber sandwich and glass of Sherry isn't an option anymore, as the wake is catered like a wedding.  There is a remembrance table, where people can write about the person and put it in a jar, there are flowers, cakes and candles, tastefully placed around a large photo.  There is a basket of tissues labelled, "for happy tears." but no one from the immediate family is crying.  They are working too hard to host the party.  Grief will be postponed to a more convenient time.

I blame Richard Curtis and Pintrest.  It won't stop me watching Four Weddings and a Funeral and blubbing when John Hannah reads Auden's Stop the Clocks, so beautifully and because I promised myself that I will spend the school holidays seriously writing I have spent the day making funeral Pintrest boards.

  However, I hope that when it comes to arranging my funeral none of my family think they have to do any more than shuffle in from the rain, listen to the celebrant get the details of my life wrong, sing the Lord's My Shepherd badly, begin to grieve and go to the pub.  If they want to put on a concert or show about my life they can do it later, when they feel less numb about the whole thing but only if it's funny.

Change is bad

One of the Long Suffering Husband's catchphrases is, "change is bad." He really suffers from change. He enjoys a routine and even the smallest change puts him out of his comfort zone. Today is the first day of Ramadan and so his usual lunch partner will not be joining him and this thought has not started his day well.

I've always been a much more chaotic sort of person and so change feels like more of an opportunity to clear out some of the clutter than a bad thing. I try to see the positive side of change; that it allows for something new and exciting. But this is not always easy. With change comes a grief for what you've lost and grief has to be respected. 

This time of year can be very difficult. As schools break up all those little losses mount up. The children you won't teach next year. The teachers you won't work with. The friends your children won't see any more. The fantastic teachers that won't be working with your children anymore.

This year, I am feeling the loss more acutely than ever. The year 6s I teach are the most talented musicians and the school will really miss them, my school band will be different without the trumpet player, the amazing grade 4 flautists and our only 2 guitarists . The choir will not be the same without the brilliant singers who are happy to perform solos with almost no practice and do it brilliantly. At the Youth Orchestra, seven members are leaving this year, as they are off to University, to join the army or to travel the world and although we insist you can never leave our orchestra (once MYO always MYO) we will miss them. One of my colleagues is leaving to go to a new school and I will miss her. She's bonkers and gets my sense of humour and always makes me laugh. And yesterday I found out that a brilliant teacher from the music department will be leaving my son's school. 

The problem with the school life is that everything stops (honestly I'm not complaining. I love school holidays) and you have to sit with that grief and loss for the next 6 weeks. In September, when everything starts again there is a natural replacement. In the orchestra, band and choir the loss of the leavers allow others to step up and show what they had been hiding. I will get new colleagues, who may be just as bonkers. The sign of a good school is one that continues to be just as brilliant if one amazing teacher leaves and although my colleague will be a great loss she will be replaced by another great teacher. 

I hope my son's school is just as good because at the moment I am struggling to get past the loss. This particular teacher is totally responsible for him wanting to go there. She runs the school's award winning choir and gets amazing results from her choirs. We have been attending the school Summer Music concert for 10 years and at the very first we saw, when he was only 5 years old, he watched the choir and the grand finale in awe and turned to me and asked when he could start that school. She taught my daughter, as the only pupil in the year, A level music and she has been a quietly encouraging and supportive mentor for me and we share a passion for the Great British Bake Off. She will be missed by so many and as her Facebook page will, no doubt show her over the next few weeks, she has made an enormous difference to many, many people's lives and that is the true sign of an outstanding teacher.

So, for the next few weeks I'm going to agree with the LSH and think that change is bad. September will, I hope, bring new exciting things for everyone.