Grief: worse- and stranger, than you can imagine

I was watching the American series Hoarders today. One of the cases featured a woman who had filled her house with all the usual clutter, but among the wall-to-ceiling piles of unusable rubbish that she was nonetheless unable to throw away was a vast collection of dead things: dead rats, dead cats, a dead owl she had found in the street. All had been carefully wrapped in cling film, many had been consigned to a huge freezer. One drawer was found to be stuffed with the husks of dead cicadas, thousands of them. The resident  psychologist dared to ask her why she saved these things, and she replied "to make their deaths less meaningless".


It then emerged that she had been widowed some years before, losing her husband aged 41 to a massive coronary. Ah so! The psychologist, bless her, again dared to go there and invite her to consider that her bereavement and her bizarre practices with dead things might in fact be related. And more kudos to the lady, she eventually got to the point where she was able to acknowledge this.


When my son died suddenly in 2006, my own life began to fall apart. I started to indulge in a series of self destructive behaviours, some of which got me in very serious trouble  With agonising guilt dominating my life, it was almost as if I needed to punish myself for my failures in parenting- surely if I had done my job as a parent properly; if I had simply loved him more, he would be alive today. And I have held to this view despite the best efforts of my wife, my friends and my psychiatrist. Don't try to take my guilt away! I cry- it keeps me warm at night.


I know some people resolve their grief in a meaningful way and go forward to lead useful lives in a reasonably well adjusted way. Good for them. For me, I remain damaged goods, leading a quiet, almost reclusive life where I rarely go out, see my friends seldom and spend the majority of my time reading, recycling and watching the TV. Occasionally I try to write but it is an excruciatingly difficult effort. At least I am now avoiding self-harming behaviour except in minor ways like cigarette smoking and drinking whisky. I expect to continue living this way until my dying day. It isn't so bad, really. But I will never be a whole man again. Don't get me wrong: I'm not complaining. Compared to some my life has a lot going for it. Many, many people have a much worse life than I do. The people of Gaza, the people of West Africa and indeed not a few people right here in Britain would doubtless exchange their miserable lives for mine in a heartbeat.