There Is No Timetable for Grief: 16 Years Without My Mam
Grief doesn't follow a calendar and sometimes it catches you completely off guard.
This week marked 16 years since my mam went to spirit. Sixteen years.
And if there's one thing I've learned, both personally and through many years of supporting people through bereavement, it's that grief does not work to a timetable. It doesn't look at the calendar and say, Well, it's been 16 years now. You should be grand.
Life moves forward. We laugh again. We build lives. Families grow. There are birthdays, holidays, grandchildren, ordinary Thursdays, cups of tea, arguments about nothing and all the normal bits of living.
And then sometimes, completely out of nowhere, grief taps you on the shoulder and says, I'm still here.
When grief catches you by surprise
On the morning of my mam's anniversary, it didn't gently tap me on the shoulder. It floored me. I sobbed from the pit of my stomach. I found myself cradling myself like a baby, calling out, "Mam, I really miss you." And I did. I really, really missed her.
Now, I want to say something important here, particularly for anyone who is in the early days of grief and reading this thinking:
Oh God... am I still going to feel like this in 16 years?
No. That's not what I'm saying at all. I don't walk around every day feeling the way I felt that morning. My life has grown around my grief. I laugh. I love. I work. I have my family and my grandchildren. I have a full life. And I also have a very different relationship with my mam now. I talk to her. I feel her around me. I ask her for guidance. I notice the little signs and moments that remind me of her. I genuinely believe that our relationship didn't end when her physical life ended. But none of that means I don't sometimes desperately miss having my mam here physically. And this week, I did.
So I asked her for a sign
The following day, my dad and I went to the graveyard. I don't personally believe that my mam is in the grave. But going there is still a way of honouring her. We brought her fresh flowers, because she loved flowers, and we spent some time there together.
Before we left, I kissed her photograph on the headstone and said:
"Mam, send me a sign that you're with me today."
We got back into the car. And this is where it gets good. The radio came on. The first song? I've Had the Time of My Life from Dirty Dancing.
Now, anyone who knew my mam would understand why this made me smile. That woman could watch Dirty Dancing on repeat until she'd nearly wreck your head with it.
Okay, Mam. I'm listening. Then the next song came on - Roy Orbison, "Crying". At this stage I started laughing. Because after the morning I'd had the previous day crying for her, I could nearly hear her: "Would you stop with the crying!" And then another song came on straight afterwards by Gilbert O Sullivan whom she loved. Three songs, one after another, and by now my dad and I were laughing.
Was it coincidence?
Some people will absolutely say it was. That's okay. I didn't experience it that way. For me, in that moment, after asking my mam for a sign, it felt like her humour. It felt familiar. It felt like connection. And suddenly two days that had begun with me sobbing and longing for her had another emotion sitting alongside the sadness.
Joy.
Grief and joy can sit beside each other
I think this is something we don't talk about enough. Grief isn't always one thing. You can cry because you miss somebody and ten minutes later laugh at a memory of them. You can have rebuilt your life and still have a day when the loss feels incredibly close. You can feel grateful for everything you have now and still wish, with every part of you, that one particular person could be sitting at the kitchen table with you.
One doesn't cancel out the other. And having a difficult day years after someone has died does not mean you've gone backwards. It doesn't erase all the healing, living, growing and adjusting you've done.
Sometimes it simply means:
I love you. And today, I really miss you.
Continuing the relationship after someone dies
For many years, grief was often spoken about in terms of "letting go" or "moving on." I've never particularly liked either phrase.
We don't have to erase someone from our lives in order to continue living.
- Our relationship with them can change.
- You might talk to them while you're driving.
- You might play their favourite music.
- Cook something they used to make.
- Visit somewhere you went together.
- Keep a photograph nearby.
- Tell your children or grandchildren their stories.
- Light a candle.
- Pour yourself a cup of tea and pour one for them too.
- Or simply sit quietly and say: "Come and sit with me for a little while."
You don't have to force a sign. You don't have to convince yourself you've felt something when you haven't.
Just allow the connection to have space.
- Sometimes it may come through a song.
- Sometimes a memory.
- Sometimes a dream, a familiar smell, a sudden thought or that inexplicable feeling that someone you love is close.
- And sometimes... nothing dramatic happens at all.
You simply spend ten minutes remembering someone you love. That matters too.
Love doesn't disappear
Sixteen years later, I understand my mam differently. I understand myself differently too. There are things I wish we'd spoken about. Things I understand now that I couldn't have understood then. And there are still moments when I would give anything to physically sit beside her again. But I no longer believe that death ended our relationship. It changed it. And perhaps that's one of the gentler things we can allow ourselves to discover in grief. We don't have to choose between continuing to live our own life and continuing to love someone who has died.
There is room for both.
And sometimes, rather than waiting for a sign or hoping to suddenly feel them around you, you can deliberately make space for that connection. I often encourage people to actually make an appointment with their loved one. Choose a time. Honour it in the same way you would if you were meeting someone you love. Put the kettle on. Pull out a chair. Pour the cup of tea they loved, or the glass of wine or whiskey they would have chosen, and invite them to sit with you.
- Talk to them.
- Tell them what's happening in your life.
- Tell them you miss them.
- Ask the questions you wish you could still ask.
You might cry. You might laugh. You might feel their presence around you. You might notice something afterwards that feels significant. Or you might simply sit there feeling a little bit foolish talking to an empty chair, and that's okay too. The point isn't to make something happen. It's to make space for the relationship that still matters to you.
So if you're missing somebody today, whether they died last month, last year or many years ago, don't judge yourself for it.
- Make the cup of tea.
- Play the song.
- Say their name.
- Tell the story you've told a hundred times before.
- Laugh at the thing they used to do that drove you absolutely mad.
- And if you want to, ask them for a little sign.
hen go about your day with an open heart. You never know what might come on the radio.
A little reminder from me
There is no timetable for love, and there is no timetable for grief. Be gentle with yourself on the days when the longing feels particularly strong. Missing someone doesn't mean you're going backwards. Sometimes it simply means that love is still very much part of your life.
Karen xx
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