These entries start a few days after Anna’s funeral and cremation in July 2016. They are based on text messages, email and journal entries written at the time. Anna and Conal had been together since 1978.
August 1, 2016: Went back to work fulltime, but from home. Can’t face the office. Can’t face people.
August 4: See My Male Psychologist, he got me to relive those final days with Anna. So, I did.
I did cry but I had told the events many times – so it wasn’t traumatic.
I think My Male Psychologist is used to people bottling things up, instead I gave him the full 3D, stereo Dolby Effect, Technicolour, Cinematography experience with whistles and bells. It was The Director’s Cut. It is my way of processing what has happened.
I tell him how we believe Anna visited our home – after she died – to say farewell to us.
Do we have proof? A full pot of tea jumped off the kitchen table and shattered, another time a cup of coffee ended up on the floor when nobody was near it. We are taking these as proof of a farewell.
My Male Psychologist said “people only mention these events in therapy”.
Indeed, I told him, we took photos and put them on Facebook.
You have to share these memories with people, I tell him.
How am I really? He asks.
Again I am fine, until I think about Anna. Or have to talk about her.
Then I go to pieces. But I have worked out ways to think around her – that is not upsetting.
It is a bit like having a back molar pulled; there are times it is really sore, then other times when it seems fine. You probably think “yeah it is good”; and think the wrong way … And the pain is back. That is how I am feeling. There are good days and bad days.
I will never see Anna again. Not in this lifetime anyway. And that hurts.
Conal Healy, grief survivor
I tell My Male Psychologist, how Anna and I have been only apart for a total of 6-8 weeks since October 1984. The rest of the time we lived in each other’s pocket. Side by side.
It is now five weeks since Anna died. This is the longest we have ever been separated. And that time will keep growing.
Yes, I will never see Anna again. Not in this lifetime anyway. And that hurts.
I tell him about my future: “Really I am mourning for the next 12 months. I would be unable to form a relationship with another woman. My mind is fucked, fractured. And it is. The sun still comes up. The days march by. With luck I am almost out of the woods and I can now start to see sunshine. “
August 6: We have an Irish Wake for Anna. It was held at my brother’s house. There were about 20 of us – people who’d known Anna for decades … who were all determined to give her a final send off (in Australia).
The wake started in the late afternoon (4.30pm) and went until … well, I know I left for bed at 3.15am and I wasn’t the last one to go. There was food, there was plenty to drink (we got through bottles of liqour), heaps to eat and plenty of singing and recalling Anna.
There was even a pavlova – with the final piece left for Anna. It was emotional. And we wished Anna a safe journey.
There is a story behind the last piece of pavlova.
Two years earlier we threw a surprise birthday for Anna, who was then battling lung cancer.
The cake was a pavlova.. There was one piece left over and Jess (a friend of My Daughter) was offering the last piece to people … and they were politely refusing.
What Jess didn’t know was that Anna had her eye on the piece of pavlova. … but wanted to sure everybody had got a slice.
What Anna didn’t know was that in Jess’ household that if everybody as refused the cake … it gets thrown out.
So, when every nobody wanted the last slice, Jess scraped it into the bin.
Anna was horrified. That was HER slice. And never forgave Jess.
At the wake people were warned that if they took that last piece that Anna would come and haunt them, forever.
(Somehow, during the night that last piece of pavlova. disappeared. It was gone the next morning.)
We gathered around the fire pit and drank under the Milky Way – it was a cold winter’s night – would have been close to zero and we raised a glass to Anna.
The next morning we had a huge bacon, egg, sausage, black pudding, coleslaw and mushroom breakfast … cooked on the BBQ. Somewhere along the line I got a bad sausage … because I felt sick for the day. It was the sausage, not the alcohol.
Grief changes you: A significant loss will always affect your life to such an extent that things, and you, will be different.
Remember the jigsaw puzzle. So don’t expect to be your old self again – grieving requires you to learn new ways of coping, learn new skills, and learn to live without someone who meant so much.
www.mygriefassist.com.au
