Love and grief
And other big feelings.
I didn't think I was a Substack writing person (is the Latin a Substacker? Help). But then I had an extended thought that could maybe more accurately be described as a ‘big feeling,’ and it didn't fit in an Instagram post, so I thought rather than condensing it, or trying to put it in a novel and thus having to wait four plus years for it to see the light of day, I’d have a go at writing it down here.
Aside from being quite uninteresting, my reluctance has been because I’ve been a bit shy of sharing too much of myself outside of my fiction. ‘Oh God. At least it’s not a podcast’, I hear you mutter. But I’m going to try this on for size. I write fast and I write every day but honestly I get a bit anxious about the internet and what I put into the world. It will be close to two years between signing my publishing deals and my first book coming out, and boy oh boy, let me tell you, that’s a hell of a lot of time to worry about absolutely everything. My novels are very personal, which I am aware is sort of like saying ‘I like music.’ But despite what literally everyone thinks when they read Bitter Sweet (my first novel - you’ll find it in the fiction section from July, people) it is not a memoir and all of my characters are creations. Especially with first books, it’s very natural to offload a lot of our lived experiences, good and bad. Someone really smart said something about how we have to get our first novels out of our system before we can write anything interesting. I can’t find the source of that quote so if you know it, do message me. I’m currently writing my third novel – my first book, Bitter Sweet, is out in July, my second, Beginning. Middle. End I think in early 2027 – and I feel that only now am I starting to really write outside of my own experience. But I keep coming back to the same themes; Love, grief, sex, mothers and daughters, and an innate and compelling longing for a bigger life. I’m planning to explore all of these things more here, over time. For free.
Last week I was chatting to my therapist (yeah, I’m writing about a conversation with my fucking therapist – please bear with me) about love and what that big word means, and, more interestingly, what it looks like. I explained that I see love as being totally unique to the person that is the object of that particular feeling in that particular moment, and the specifics of the relationship you have with them, and so in my eyes it isn’t possible to define it as one thing or another. I’ve never loved two people in the same way. So it isn’t one word and it isn’t the Greek six (or eight? I’m unclear) words. I’d actually like to come up with a new word for every single experience of love I feel. Shmuv. Cluv. Gruv! There’s three. Easy.
Because I am almost always thinking about death, I then started talking about the parallels of love and grief. Grief is just the changed state of the presiding emotions you felt for the person you lost when they were still alive. The somatic expressions of grief are pretty universal, but the psychic bit is quite particular to the individual and relationship you have lost. Usually, we talk about this in terms of love. It’s more polite to focus on the positives when a person has just carked it. But that’s a very simplistic way of looking at it. Love isn’t ever pure, unless you are a dog. There’s always other stuff mixed in with it. Fear, resentment, guilt, jealousy, disappointment, dissatisfaction, insecurity – as well as nicer, softer things like affection and security and admiration and comfort. Looking into the alarmingly purple face of my baby when she was born, the love I felt was as pure as I have ever known love to be, but still there was so much OTHER STUFF. Mostly enormous worry - she was extremely unwell, hence the purple face – but weirder still, there was a self-conscious thing in my chest; was I feeling what I should be feeling, was the glassy gaze on my face enough? Was I just internally and externally impersonating the maternal love I had seen on TV and in films, as I had in the past with grief, and was I now so caught up in appearances that I was missing this moment altogether? Probably not. But I did wonder. This is maybe something we all feel in the dramatic moments in our lives, good and bad. I must also cut myself a break because having a baby when you haven’t had a mum of your own for twenty years is complicated.
But back to my big feelings, if you are still reading. I promise this does all tie together.
When someone dies, the love we have for them becomes inseparable from grief. The anger, disappointment, regret, dislike, all of that becomes grief, too. So although we are generally happy accepting that love has a million meanings and that love depends on the individual relationship I think we should get better at understanding that the same goes for grief. In my life I have lost a lot of people. I have lost my mother, too many beloved friends both young and old, lovers, friend’s children and more family members than I can count; cousins, aunts, uncles, my grandparents. Some of these people cared for me long-term when I was small. Every loss has brought with it a unique grief; some of it has been so exquisite that it has left me on my knees, unable to work or eat or breathe, some I have carried with me more stoically, more quietly. As I get older I get better at it. I can be remarkably philosophical about it all, like the village elder full of wisdom, a few teeth and a wink of knowing that says ‘this too shall pass, I have seen it before, I have survived it’ as the sun sets on a funeral. This can be a great comfort to people. I hope it is. I like being a comfort.
My mum died 22 years ago, on the morning of the 22nd of April 2003, and just like that year it was a Tuesday morning after the long Easter weekend. It was a rubbish time to die, in amongst all that resurrection. It was just before 9 a.m. and a blazing hot morning. I was 18. She was 59. Everything that has happened since is a ripple of that loss. I still think of her every day, but less than I did. I am unable to stop writing about her and about my life with and without her and about grief and what being a daughter to a mother means. She was an exceptionally bright and extraordinarily kind woman. She loved Mimosa trees and daffodils in spring, and she drank Earl Grey tea. She devoted her life to safeguarding and educating young children. She believed in play and creativity and she loved, more than anything other than her children and her children’s friends, to cook and to read. She loved France, and all things French. She listened to Van Morrison and Paul Simon and Gershwin and Mozart. Her friends tell me how proud of me she would be and I love them for it, and I believe them. They love me for her. Having my own kid has brought me closer to my mum and I think I know her better now than I ever did. My relationship with her has evolved in the years she has been gone, it has never stood still although she has, frozen in time like the photographs of her I treasure so much. (Just, listen to me when I say take more photographs than you do. One day you’ll really need them.)
But life goes on. It gets beautiful again. We love again and we lose those we love and it’s all a big fuckin’ spinning mess of a Catherine wheel. Yesterday morning, my daughter Astrid, who is two, pointed at a picture of my mum which hangs on the wall by my bed and asked if she could go and see her ‘grandmother’ tomorrow. She knows who she is, I have a lot of pictures up, and much like frogs and snails, she is very interested in her. Not knowing what else to say, because how do you explain death to a two year-old (genuine question) I told her that we can’t go and see her because she isn’t here, but that it doesn’t matter because she loves her very, very much. It’s exactly what my mum said to me about her parents when I asked about them, because they also died long before I was born.
It is a lie. It really matters that she isn’t here. But we carry on regardless. There’s nothing else to do.
If you liked this, then you might want to pre-order my debut novel Bitter Sweet which is out on July 3rd in the UK and Commonwealth/July 8th in the US. You can find out more about it and me on my website HERE.
“an innate and compelling longing for a bigger life” I FEEL SEEN