Grief As Memoir.

I'm diving in and writing.

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I’ve been standing on the edges of grief now for around a year.

No-one has to die for grief to be real for us.

What I now know, and it’s a heart and gut knowing not a head knowing, is that I must write to better help myself grieve.

Thanks Substack!

I mentioned here that I may begin memoir writing and had some vague notions of where I might start until I kept being tugged at by “grief” and its memories in my body, heart and mind.

So, I am doing this.

It may be uncomfortable to read.

I know that if I do not share it, then I am hiding back under the covers of real loss and that does not help me much at all.

I did write quite a bit here and this post will unfold more of the rawness from my experiences.

BUT before I dig deeper I want my readers to know this is a process for me.

I am used to being a rule-follower but I am also a feelings-sharer and somehow, the words within Patti Miller’s book helped me learn more about memoir as a type of publication “Life writing is a general term that can be used to encompass the broad territory of non-fiction writing…based on actual experience and observations ..of which memoir is one”…but…see after this photo.

…it’s to the more raw and emotional writings I am drawn and seek the courage…as I said at the start, to
DIVE in and WRITE!

NOW.

Thursday 22 August 2024.

I am drawn to people’s life stories.

I find out more about myself in other people’s words and continue my search as I love it. Recently one person has been just that ONE I have connected with, and she is such a lovingly kind woman, that when her subscription annual rate here on Substack was reduced I took it up.

Access to

Clover Stroud

words, musings, little videos, stories on instagram, and notes here are helping me be ‘brave’ and ‘vulnerable’ at once in my now writing and thinking about Memoir. I am currently listening to her memoir #3 about her sister’s death and it’s spurred me on to sharing my thoughts and feelings.

Listening to

Katherine May

book Enchantment, and I now have Wintering on my list, I am learning from her life stories too.

This is from a recent note here on Substack:

What’s Been Happening To Me This Week.

I am a mess in some ways.

I know that the half-year anniversary of Dad’s death is approaching.

I have a post coming out on Friday 30 August about the 27 February 2024 and all that happened! It was a LOT.

It also marks the long weeks and months of allowing the machinations of a person’s death to be accounted for, recorded, officially noted and so much more.

This has been shared with my brother who is co-executor. Dad prepared us well in many respects for his eventual death but memories of his planning and considerations are also causing me to feel incredibly emotional: gratitude most of all.

It is also a personal anniversary for my cancer recovery. Six years since I got my ‘smile’ as I have called it. At times I ‘forget’ the grief of that cancer but it does not let me …and so I acknowledge its presence.

Ageing…the two of us is…a bit of a challenge but both B and I are support each others emotionally and to an extent physically when that part of our health aged 75 and 74 needs it.

Remembering the ‘what ifs’ and ‘maybes’ about our housing security and past choices and decisions raise their heads a bit too but generally I can accept these and…as in the image:

SPECIFICALLY this too.

I am as visual person predominantly. I have memories as pictures in my mind and in my photo collection. I like to record and remember and consider what is and what was.

So, here are some thoughts right now as I share what is part of my grieving now.

VISITING Dad.

I had a tradition of taking a photo* in the lift at Dad’s Unit as I was leaving. It kind of marked the end of the visit..be it a positive or negative one or somewhere in between.

I was not to know this would be the last one. February 4, 2024.

I also had a tradition of taking a photo on my way in, of the hallway and to his front door.

The last time I did this was the day of his 100th Birthday: 11 January 2024.

Then Dad became so unwell he was hospitalised on 19 February 2024.

I visited once he had been assigned a room, because that took quite a time.

I took a photo in the lift. I just thought to do it.

And I took a photo of this corridor in the hospital which led to his room. It is somewhat sad too because it is in one of those rooms where I had three visits over 5 days, and where I said my last goodbye to Dad…as he was actively dying.

I am not sharing the images* as they also are memories for members of my family.

WHAT HELPS ME.

Having a cry.

Allowing my tears.

For too long I have held on in case my tears may upset another person. Now I know I have to do this. Cry I mean. It’s a salve of sorts and a loving tribute to the person who died.

I am not only grieving the death of Dad. I am allowing myself the grief I did not always feel or have around the death of Mum, and those who pre-deceased them who I also loved.

It’s a complicated life event having a loved one die. And also acknowledging that I too will one day.

Out of respect for my family members, as Substack is a very public place to write, I am writing about how it is for me. I cannot, and nor should anyone speak of another and how they are.

I’m fortunate to be independent and able to follow my sense of what I need to do and be in grief, and one place which always calls me is NATURE and being beside water.

Before Dad died, in the last days of life, I came here to honour him and help me feel a connection:

On 21 August it was a different source of grief for me.

One of both gratitude and incredulity. I was diagnosed with a rare oral cancer in May 2017 where all of my upper mouth was removed and over time, the upper mouth was reconstructed from part of my body. I have, over the course of having a blog (now closed), written much of this.

However some days will, as they do for me, stand out as remembering date and where I need to acknowledge the grief of having lost half of my mouth and parts of my leg (into my mouth) and that despite appearances, having a smile is good but it does not replicate eating or drinking for me pre-cancer. I have mentioned some of those challenges for me elsewhere and why they CAN or MAY restrict my life.

So I drove to a place where I could see some running water, and on the way, I listened to more of The Red of My Blood,

Clover Stroud

stark, raw and oh so truth-filled book about how grief is…and it helps. It really does, for me, to know I am not alone.

At Cattai Creek, about 30 minutes drive from home, and “even better” than the creek I visited so often back on the Central Coast!

What now?

Pressing publish.

That’s it.

And being brave and vulnerable is helping me honour my grief.

Do let me know your thoughts if you can.

Take care, as I say,

Denyse.