I don’t know how I feel about this prompt. One of my bugbears is the word normal, and the way that people might tell you that it is normal to feel a certain way, or to react to a death in a particular way. I understand what they may be aiming at, but I struggle with the word normal. 

Because the truth is, nothing is normal. Not anymore. Not once grief enters your life. Not once there is shadow where there was once light, grief where there was once love. Normal, as you knew it, as you had got used to it, is no more. 

But then again, all that I am doing and have been doing these last 13 years- especially so in writing the book- has been to try and normalise the not normal. To talk about the things that we’ve been told by society we shouldn’t talk about. To push the boundaries of the shadows and invite people into them with me, while walking with people in theirs. 

And talking about it all like it’s normal. Because it is. And it isn’t. And it is… this is the bittersweet complexity of grief. 

Lex xx

I am a proud Harry Potter nerd, and so when asked what quote has been particularly meaningful or comforting I think my answer has to be his, said to Harry by his Godfather Sirius Black…

The Harry Potter series is so rich in the theme of grief, especially the grief of children, and indeed the chapter after (*Spoiler alert*) Sirius himself has died is often one I use as an example for people of what it is like to be a child grieving. 

A scripture that I have found comforting, is simply John 11:35- the shortest verse in the bible- Jesus wept. Knowing that at the death if his friend Lazarus that Jesus grieves and weeps with his sisters, is so meaningful. It is comforting, in one’s grief, to know that we have a saviour who knows what it is to grieve. 

Lex xx

Yesterday some friends at college were talking about the worst things that they’d ever said to their mums. I shared with them the worst (read weirdest) thing my mum ever said to me. It was a random memory that suddenly bubbled up in that moment, one that is a little infamous in our family. It is a memory that always make me smile. 

There is a cupboard under the stairs in my parents’ house. It used to be my toy cupboard, before Harry Potter made them cool, because I probably would have tried to sleep in there if I knew… 

But it used to get really untidy, and my mum would regularly have to help me tidy up the cupboard. One day, she was in the depths of the cupboard sorting something out and a vase, i stress this point a vase- I was about 8 and not known for my extensive vase collection, fell off a shelf and hit her on the head. 

From the depths of the cupboard she shouted “Alexandra Elizabeth Bradley, I loathe you!” My brother and I, who were on the outside of the cupboard, just looked at each other and then my mum came out, with the vase, laughing. And then we all joined in. It would have definitely been the worst thing my mum ever said to me… if she was serious… but she wasn’t. So it was in fact one of the weirder things she ever said to me, and my most middle class telling off by far. 

Lex xx

Like i wish I hadn’t started this writing project. There’s a reason that I haven’t significantly written about this whole thing for 10 years after completing the book, because it’s tough. I know that in these prompts I have hardly gone very deep (yet), but even then it’s just always at the surface. I feel like I’ve got no skin on, and everything feels just that little bit too sensitive. 

And I knew it would, but that’s how it feels…today. 

Today, I feel like a bruise. Holding myself a bit too gingerly because I don’t want anyone to press on anything.

And do you know what? Tomorrow I probably won’t feel like this. I’ll probably like this writing project again and see the joy and the point. Tomorrow, I’ll wake up and it will be a better day. 

Tomorrow, I will feel…something else. Because that is the truth and reality of grief, that some days you wake up and just know that it isn’t going to be great day, but then in a day you may feel something completely different. And that is the reality 13 and a half years in, which is horrendous in so many ways, but comforting in so many others.  

Today, that’s how I feel. 

Lex xx

A simple prompt for today. There are libraries of words written in poetry and prose about grief. And that is huge comfort when you yourself are grieving, that you can stumble across some of these words, quite unexpectedly, and it is like a hand reaching out of the text and telling you “Me too.” 

There are many words I could share today, but one that has brought me comfort, I think especially now, a little ways down the road…as the shadows grow longer… is an untitled poem, attributed simply to “Laura” 

There is a grief that ages the face and hardens the heart Yet softens the spirit…

 A grief that casts shadows on the eyes Yet broadens the mind…

A grief that keeps the pain and has no words But increases the understanding…

 There is a grief that breaks the heart and wounds the soul,
That lasts and lasts and can shatter in a minute,But will inspire for a lifetime.

Lex xx

If there is one thing that is most frustrating about the death of a loved one, it is that they, in effect, leave half way through a conversation. You have a relationship with them, oftentimes an incredibly significant, attachment, relationship with them, and then they die. Effectively leaving your relationship, you conversations with them, your love for them unresolved and interrupted. 

And it’s frustrating! It’s rude when people leave while your’re still talking to them. Excuse me, I hadn’t finished! I wasn’t finished speaking to you, loving you. There are things I wanted to say, things I needed to tell you. 

Still things I need to tell you… Aside from the hundreds of things, everyday, that I see or think that I’d want to tell you. That i’d think you’d like, or find funny.

I meant to tell you that I was gay, I think you probably knew, but I wish I’d had the chance to tell you. 

I want to tell you that I’m ok. I’m happy- not that you’re not here- but I’m alright. 

That’s what I’d tell you, if I could. 

Lex xx

We have been told time and again how beneficial being thankful is for our mentality and perspective. Maintaining an attitude of gratitude allows us the ability to remember and dwell in those things that aren’t as difficult as some areas of our lives. 

Asking someone what they are thankful for in their grief may seem like an odd question, and at times is impossible to answer. But if you are able to ponder the question, and wrestle with the answers, then our multifaceted grief can take on another level. It’s not reaching a place of “acceptance”, but it is looking back at a grief journey thus far and considering what, amidst the anguish, we can be thankful for.

While I have been grieving, I have been thankful for…

• Family
• Good friends
• Being able to write
• Music
• The cinema
• God’s love
• My faith
• Ben 
• Jerry
• The beach
• Hills
• Water
• My beloved
• Children
• New life 
• Healing 

Lex xx

One of the things that you very quickly come to realise when you are grieving, is all the other secondary losses that move into your life along with your primary grief. Your primary loss is still the big thing, the one that matters and hurts and overshadows most. But there are so many other things affected and changed and lost because of who is no longer in your life. 

Some of them aren’t necessarily bad, some of these secondary losses you don’t cling to and are happy to see go. But they are still losses, and it is good to acknowledge them and their passing, along side your primary grief. 

Alongside my primary grief, I lost…

• Innocence
• My childhood
• Memories
• A link to the past
• A very bad hairstyle
• Priorities that didn’t matter
• A lightness to my faith 
• Certainty 
• Surety 
• Understanding the way the world was
• Friends
• A role model
• Confidence
• Giving a crap what the world thinks

Explore your secondary losses, push beyond the primary behemoth clamouring for all your attention. Address the lesser know, lesser seen, lesser understood nooks and crannies of your bereavement and discover what lies there. 

Lex xx

One of my favourite songs from the Les Mis is Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, and in that song there is a line that, every time I hear it, never fails to give me chills. There’s a grief that can’t be spoken…

A grief that can’t be spoken. When I blogged through holy week many years ago, and I reflected on Holy Saturday, I titled the blog with this. And still I can’t get it out from under my skin. There is a grief that can’t be spoken. 

There is so much of grief that is unspoken. Unspoken because you cannot possibly find the words from inside yourself, to be able to put voice to them. Unspoken because there are things that don’t need to be put into the ether. Unspoken because it is simply so mind numbingly mundane and utterly dull- because it is sometimes, grief is boring- that it is the last thing you want to say. 

But there are other things unspoken. All those conversations that you want to have with the person who has left you behind. All the things that you should be able to say to them. The things you were saying when grief interrupted, that now remain unspoken. Forever unspoken. 

There is, however, a small part, of your unspoken grief that feels comforting.  That is unspoken because you like it that way. Unspoken because it feels like a secret between you and them, the bit that, were they still alive, would be the most precious heart of your relationship with them. 

And so sometimes, while the unspoken grief can be dark and lonely, it can also be a place to retreat to. To explore and dwell in.  

Lex xx

Grief makes you think the worst things. Imagine the most intrusive thoughts, times them by ten and you have the tricks grief plays on your mind.

But the thing is, we need the worst thoughts. Our minds need to go to the end of themselves, to explore the boundaries of what we think, believe and imagine. Because the worst has happened, and maybe, just maybe, the worst thing we can think, believe or imagine isn’t actually the worst. Maybe it’s just is. Just a thought. Just an idea. Just something that, in the pain of everything else going on, our minds needed to put voice to. 

That’s what I found surprising. With the help of a book and film. That the very worst thing I thought, that for 10 years I berated myself for, is in fact not that surprising and something that other kids think…

Grief is often unkind to you, telling you that what you think is the worst. But sometimes grief is surprisingly kind, catching you, just as you fall off the edge of expressing the self same worst thing. 

Lex xx