From well trodden dirt, it is possible for new life to emerge
An invitation for you to make sense of your grief
It’s that time again, a monthly reflection from me, and it’s fallen at a particularly pertinent time. I often wonder will you, as readers, grow tired of my musings on grief. At the same time - to avoid meeting myself where I am would feel incredibly dishonest. And as a writer, I feel my greatest strength is vulnerability.
It feels as though there was a Liv that existed prior to my father’s death, and a Liv that will forever exist in a state of mourning post grief. We’re a couple weeks off two years since he died, which coincidentally falls around the time gal-dem, the company which I founded as a 21 year old, shuttered last year. It’s also three years since I moved to Margate and that marks the end of my chapter here, as we head back to the city. It’s one year since I got the first proof copy of Rosewater, and three years since I packed in the job I was known for at gal-dem.
It’s a time that feels imbued with losses of many different kinds. Although with spring coming, it feels as though the soil is ripe with possibility and new beginnings. But in order to embrace and make sense of those new beginnings - I’m also deeply aware that I have to make sense, hold space and show myself kindness too.
As I sit and think about my father, there’s a lot that comes to mind. So much love, so much heartbreak. My therapist suggested I try a free writing exercise on the topic of loss - given all the losses resurfacing, and all of the feelings around that. I think it’s an exercise that some of you might comfort in too. I found it to be a helpful way to honour my feelings rather than bury them. In doing so it allows me to put one step in front of the other. To keep going.
When I find myself burrowing in and doing my utmost to hide from the painful reflections on grief, and the many different forms it might choose to manifest, it causes me greater and often debilitating pain in the long run.
After the conversation with my therapist, I went for a walk with a friend and they told me about the somatic therapy they’d tried. They had been encouraged and gently guided to move with their body, rather than overriding what it naturally wanted to do. They told me how they often felt aware of not wanting to burden others with their emotional response, I think so many of us do the same, which in turn caused them to keep things in.
They described the power of moving with, rather than against, themselves. How we should allow our body to complete its natural response, for example not suppressing tears or a desire to move in a certain way. In trying not to judge or control what their body felt it needed - they felt a greater sense of peace and clarity on the other side.
For me, allowing myself to write freely and without judgement, or concern for structure, offered me a similar thing. A similar sense of peace, understanding and acknowledgement. So here are those musings on loss - and I hope this serves as an invitation for you to muse and make sense of your grief too.
Loss feels like a void that I worry will never be filled again. At least not in the same way. It’s a depth of love so deep it magnifies the absence of the man for whom I was everything.
Loss is in everything. It feels like loss of breath, it feels like an acute tightness in my chest, it feels like the realisation that I won’t meet him again. Not here, anyway.
It’s a mourning not only of the version of me that is left scarred, but for all that wasn’t able to come.
It’s the birthdays, trips, and the coming together of a father/daughter bond that had deepened over recent years.
It’s all the winters spent in Jamaica on his veranda. He loved that veranda.
It’s the love and affection he had for my mother that endured until his dying days.
It’s the same things she showed him.
It’s the version of me that tries to make sense of the mess that is loss.
It’s wanting to move on but feeling desperately hopeless in the realisation that it may not be possible.
To keep going is too painful. Why do I get to live on? To move, to dream, to shift, to evolve, while he is not here any longer.
It’s knowing that he only wanted a little bit more time, five or ten years he said would be enough - he’d take it.
It’s knowing that his energy isn’t gone. It’s feeling that energy and that love.
It’s remembering the warmth of his smile.
It’s wanting to see that smile in front of me. Not just when I close my eyes.
It’s knowing that my round head, my face, belongs to him.
It’s knowing that I am him.
It’s carrying the trauma of what happened.
It’s my body tired and heavy from the weight of carrying it all.
It’s the hope, and then the shattering, that a bridge could be built with his family.
It’s wanting to build my own.
It’s being unsure if I want to build my own, because I’m so sad.
It’s wondering if it’s a true desire or a trauma response.
It’s feeling like I’m running out of time.
It’s shallow laboured breath
It’s feeling out of breath.
It’s shoulders up and tight and tense.
It’s exhaustion that never disappears no matter how much I sleep, it’s not my body that is tired, it’s a tiredness in the core of my being.
It’s in the voice notes I replay time and time again, just so I can hear the sunshine in his voice when he says I love you.
It’s making it to the other side, and knowing that it’s a continuous process. Making sense of this thing called grief.
It’s knowing more than ever that from well trodden dirt and dust, it is possible for new life to emerge.
With love, always,
Liv
This was everything.
This resonates so much. Thank you for your vulnerability and openness 🙏🏼