My dad died last April and everything I thought I understood about grief has proven wrong. I have lost relatives and friends, but nothing prepared me for the realisation that I will never hear his voice again. Yet, losing a parent is the natural order of things because the alternative is the unbearable situation of a parent losing their child.
In The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion wrote “Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We anticipate (we know) that someone close to us could die, but we do not look beyond the few days or weeks that immediately follow such an imagined death.” In the days following my dad’s death, I found myself asking my siblings if they were OK even though I struggle to answer that question when people ask me. Years of conditioning have made it my default along with “I’m sorry for your loss.”
The early days are structured; people need to be informed and a funeral must be arranged. Ritual, whether religious or not, has a rhythm to it. A way of ensuring we do what needs to be done.