You’re warned that after the funeral the support will die down. The funeral is the marker for when life is expected to revert to normal and you’re expected to pick yourself up and carry on.
I guess to a great extent this is true.
I’m in no way saying that people don’t care anymore, but that carefulness fades. They don’t necessarily ask how you are in the same way as before. It’s not out of malice. Often I feel it’s out of uncertainty. You are a different person to before.
They may have seen you at your most vulnerable and now, in typical British fashion, don’t know how to deal with this new side of you so pretend it doesn’t exist. I personally don’t really do great shows of emotion in front of people. I am private with that. I find writing about how I feel so much easier than facing someone and expressing it in person. I guess that’s pretty British too.
People saw me collapsing into Steve’s arms at the funeral, or those of my parents, and being unable to form words beyond “I want my baby“. I still find myself crying that like a mantra when the waves hit me. So when I stand in front of them, composed and coping, I guess they don’t want to see the raw pain again. I don’t blame them. I wish I could escape it.
I guess I’m terrified that people will forget him. That Stephen’s life will fade into a distant memory that years down the line will cause people to say “oh I forgot they had a son” when someone jogs their memory.
So for those who don’t know how to deal with the grief stricken after the funeral, please, don’t leave the person who is missing to be the elephant in the room. Talk about them, ask questions. What is the grieving person’s favourite memory? What would they one they lost have thought about the topic you’re talking about? What were they like in their youth? Who did they look like? Did they have any mannerisms that defined them? If they have lost a baby, ask the questions you’d ask any parent about their newborn. It doesn’t matter if you know the answers from photographs, just ask. Say their name.
Ask. Talk. Acknowledge.
Trust me, people want to remember the happy times. Even for stories like ours, there are happy times. We had moments of laughter and pure joy. He had his own little personality and talking about it, though bittersweet, helps keep him fresh in our minds.
If someone doesn’t want to talk, they’ll let you know. Follow their lead, you’re not opening old wounds because they never heal. I will never be free of the pain of losing my baby son. I have a dark cloud over me, even on the brightest and happiest occasions, sometimes more so then than at any other time. You won’t make that worse, remind me of it, because I can never escape or forget it.
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