Loss at five years old

When I was four turning five years old, I experienced loss for the first time. Of course, I didn’t really know what loss was or meant, but I knew when I saw my father crying his eyes out on the sofa, that the feeling of loss wasn’t a good one. My Dad had just lost his older brother, Richard, who was very young from a brain tumour. Richard had left behind four children and his devoted wife. I will never forget the shakes and sobs of my Dad, hunched over in the corner of the sofa, moaning ‘why’ over and over again. I remember walking into the room confused, trying to comfort him, before my Mum took me out.

Loss as a teenager

It was maybe that same year, or the year after, that my Dad was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. I was five, and my little brother only one years old. I had no idea what it meant at that time, but I do remember discussions between my parents at night. Maybe it wasn’t about the diagnosis, maybe it was about how dry the chicken dinner has turned out, who knows. I was too young then to realise, that with every year I got older, loss would present itself in different ways, as if it was testing me to see how much I could mentally endure as a child, before I could endure no more. Loss, of course, raised its ugly head and took away my Dad’s ability to walk, when during my teenage years, I would hear a shout, and run into the room to find my Dad collapsed on the floor, having lost the strength to stand up. Loss would laugh in my face, when my Dad struggled to bring his left foot up as he relied on a walking frame, before yelling as his legs gave way, leaving me or mum to try and lift him from the ground. Loss decided to end our once a year holidays, privileged as we were, to visit Portugal for a week all together, when Dad spent all seven days lying on a bed one time, unable to deal with the heat. Loss came in the form of health scares, the constant phone calls to 999, screaming, crying, staying up all night in hospitals or looking after my brothers, before going into school the next day, a smile painted on my face, ready to sit my GCSE exams. There were too many times to count, and too many unconscious connections between getting older and losing something that meant a whole lot to you.

Loss in my twenties

Year after year I worried, but I got through it and I was tough. We all were. That was until I lost my Grandad, the light of my life, the man I relied on for everything and anything. When he became unwell, my brother and Dad had gone into hospital at the same time. And then Loss came to face me, as I held my other brother, convinced someone upstairs was now slowly taking away anyone I had ever held dear. When my Grandad died, Loss replaced the hole in my chest with a deep resentment for life and an emptiness I can’t describe. From that moment on, through depression, consistent panic attacks and a quiet grief I could never quite thwart away, travel gave me a purpose for life. It softened the edges of pain, and showed me the positive side of living like you’re going to die tomorrow. It showed me that I was not alone, and I resonated with other people’s stories of grief and their resilience. I had been so acutely aware for so many years, of the lack of control we all have in life, that it felt a burden had been lifted from my shoulders, putting a happier hat on it. If living another day is surely luck of the draw, then let’s live life to the fullest right?

With my backpack now hung up (or dumped on the floor) having finished another few months of travelling Central America and Argentina, and with my 33rd birthday fast approaching, I can feel myself retreat back to that fearful side again. Where aging and life moments flying past render me fearful to start living again. If I’m getting older, then that means everyone around me is getting older. My Dad, my beloved Grandma, my Mum… and with two consistent decades of seeing what getting older meant for people diagnosed with illness, it’s not helping with the regular nightmares I’m starting to get now and the fear of something happening to someone – and right now, there’s nothing I can bloody do about it then sink into the feeling and let it roll past.

Accepting Loss

I’ll be 33 years old soon. There’s definitely more work I need to do on certain traumatic memories that threaten my livelihood or insist on trying to pull me down. If there’s anything I’m trying to learn and apply to my life, it’s acceptance. The acceptance I had when I travel, frees my mind and keeps me light.

But what was acceptance when I travelled really? It meant accepting anything could happen to you out there, and there might be nothing that you can do about it but go with the flow. Accepting that life is short, and we’re lucky to be here, under a roof, eating food or being with our family members. Accepting that we’re all in the same boat; born into a messy world we’ve got zero control over, and at some point we’re going to leave it, with a ton of varied, individual experiences to take with us on our next journey. You cannot stop loss from happening or taking things from you, but you can grow with it, learn from it and become a better, more giving person to others because of it.

I’m rambling now, but I thought it was worth sharing the thoughts that have been circling around and around my head, since we entered my birthday month. Here’s to letting go and letting life do its thing.