Grief & Loss: Our Relentless Companions

I was 24 years old, working in the Leaving Care Team for the London Borough of Sutton. It was 1994. I was young, enthusiastic and full of energy. Every month we were sent on different courses and I remember being sent on Grief and Loss. That is genuinely what it was called. Placing 'understanding' at the beginning of it might have been quite helpful. At the time, I remember feeling wholly disconnected from the subject of grief. I thought it just referred to death and I had barely experienced much of that! Little did I know that grief and loss are actually a human's relentless companions.

I've been experiencing a lot of grief of late as I learn to let go of who I was before cancer. It's a lot. The life I had before cancer has gone and I must accept that I will never have that life again. However, I am deeply aware that I am bearing the weight of grief in so many ways. I am writing about it because I think there may be at least some of you feeling the same.

I am grieving being part of the European Union. I know it's been nearly 10 years but I just can't seem to come to terms with our departure.

I am grieving living in a moment in time that produced the Olympics 2012 where James Bond and The Queen performed a sketch together and we felt a collective pride of sorts.

I am grieving a time when I could believe a photograph was actually taken and not a lie created by AI.

I am grieving the life we lived before Covid 19 terrified and stifled developing children, arresting their development.

I am grieving a time when fascism wasn't normalised as 'freedom of speech' and the streets were not hosts to far right rallies that are no longer 'fringe'.

I am grieving a time when algorithms didn't dominate and control the world we each think we live in.

There is so much loss and so much to grieve, and some of that is caught up with arriving in my mid 50's and also of having lived during a time when reducing child poverty was a priority and deemed a worthy priority at that. I imagine to younger readers this reads like a hankering for the past. I have no desire to hanker for the past but some things worked and worked well. There was less hatred and we weren't so angry and divided. We are of course being steered into this by a handful of very power-hungry men who benefit from our lack of cohesion.

We are wired for connection and belonging and community not division, yet here we are. Could it be possible that it is in this deep well of grief and loss that we find the most growth? Is it within the confines of feeling lost that we can find our voices and demand our need for belonging? I would suggest that it is so, but first, we must make friends with our relentless companions. We must reconnect with ourselves and nature and we must remember that we are not alone. It is within our grief and loss that we can share our very human connection with one another.