These entries begin two days after Anna’s funeral and cremation in June 2016. They are based on text messages, email and journal entries written at the time. Anna and Conal had been together since 1978.
August 8, 2016: Last week was mainly no-cry days. They come quick and generally go quick. Sometimes the tears well up … but go no further. Sometimes it is a cry that lasts for 30 seconds and fades. They are nothing like those agonizing cries of late June and early July.
I have photos of Anna on the corkboard near the kitchen so I see her smiling at me as I walk past.
It is in the evenings I feel the loss, the emptiness. I try to watch something meaningless on TV, something to switch off to. Something to numb my mind.
I am trying to avoid alcohol, and am trying to get exercise too.
I just force myself to keep going. I couldn’t face the office – so I work from home. It means I am stuck here for most of the day. Most of the week.
Things are getting better. Sometimes I get hit from out of the blue and I get upset. For example, I got a notice that Anna’s driving license was suspended because she missed a diabetes-related medical in June. I sorted that problem this week.
I got a statement for $650 for the home help organisation who sent a carer around to the house in mid-June to make contact with us … but who only stayed for three minutes. And did nothing and walked away from Anna and myself after talking to her boss. Hmmmmm, nice money.
(We were both suffering from colds and the home help carer didn’t want her next client to catch what we had. Understandably so.)
Things are getting better. Sometimes I get hit from out of the blue and I get upset.
August 9: I feel better mentally after the wake for Anna on Saturday (See Episode 5: The Sun Still Came Up) . Felt like I had passed a milestone. I did have a few well ups (of tears), but it went no further.
It is in the evenings I feel the loss, the emptiness. I try to watch something meaningless on Tv, something to switch off to. Something to numb my mind.
Conal Healy, Grief Survivor
Have started a “hopes and dreams” journal journal, thoughts that have been lurking for years at the back of my mind are coming out …and being written down.
August 11: I was lying in bed this morning, more asleep than awake. Dreamily I realized the bed was empty. “Anna must be downstairs, making cups of tea for us” I thought to myself. My ears tuned to hear Anna make the tea, but there was nothing.
No humming. No cups being filled. Silence.
Then the dream sleep faded. I woke up and realized Anna was not downstairs making tea.
She was gone. I was sad.
August 12: I returned to my desk at work for the first time in months. My desk calendar still said January. There was that moment, in January when I turned off my work PC and headed out the door to go on holiday …. well, it seemed like five or six lifetimes ago.
So much has happened since then.
It is now over two months since Anna’s funeral.
Well, those words stopped me in my tracks.
I typed that sentence and could go no further.
This is how I deal with the loss. I can’t address the subject directly – that is too painful, even now. I can think, and write, around her.
About Anna. But – there I go again – writing those four simple letters has reduced me to tears. Again. This is now a two-cry week.
Anyway, moving on.
Going back work wasn’t big and dramatic. I had no problem, no anxiety about going there.
The fact I was suffering from flu didn’t help matters. I was welcomed back, there was no celebration, no morning tea. People – the few people who still work there – greeted me. And I went to work at my old desk and saw the desk calendar stuck on January.
The main reason it took this long to get back to the office was more related to my domestic situation.
Two months ago (July) I was a blubbering mess most days. A month ago I was feeling very anti-social, it was as though all my Sensitivity Filters had been switched off and I could say anything to anybody and not give a fuck how they reacted.
In those days my eyes could project laser bolts of sadness that could wound people. I was living in my own personal world of pain. But since then I’ve learned to cope more.
The main reason I didn’t want to go back to the office was simple – working from home meant I could do my household chores. I’d throw my clothes washing into the machine when I started work at 8.30am. Hang them out on the line at Morning tea (10.30am).
By lunch time the kitchen would be clean from breakfast, I’d have lunch and throw something into the slow cooker for dinner that evening. I was there to welcome Son home from school (3.30pm) and finish work at 5pm and take the clothes off the line.
Working from office yesterday meant I came home at 5pm – and still had to tidy the kitchen from breakfast and cook dinner.
I am learning to adjust. After 30 years of sleeping at the side of the bed, my body as adjusted to sleeping in the centre of the mattress.
I am slowly packing stuff away.
For example, I am storing/donating/throwing out the books Anna used for her degree. But keeping her university notes. Her clothes, I’ve donated to charity.
I’ve also donated a lot of my clothes too.
Shirts I will never wear again. Really it has been a big Spring Clean.
I’ve lost interest in watch TV, but I’ve started to read books again.
The world seems less brighter now. My life is so much emptier now. It also feels like a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I still have plenty to live for.
August 16: Debating about cutting my hair/beard. Decide not to bother.
GRIEF: Did you know? One loss usually triggers a whole lot more. Think of it like a jigsaw puzzle – when one piece goes missing the whole puzzle is affected and isn’t held together anymore. It doesn’t look the same anymore. So, when one piece of your life is changed or is “lost”, other pieces like companionship, finances, friendships, holidays, mealtimes, outings, family gatherings, daily routines, and a whole lot more… all change too. Learning to adapt to these changes is sometimes called ‘grief work’ – and only you can do this work for yourself. www.mygriefassist.com.au
