Notes on Grief

1. In March ’23 I took about 2.5 hours to walk up Penang Hill. That was probably the hardest thing I’ve done in many years. But giving the eulogy was harder.

2. In grief everything looks and feels the same. Yet your whole world has changed.

3. I scream “WHY????” at God but I know I will reject any ‘answer’.

4. “Grief is like living with someone who isn’t there” — Jeanette Winterson

5. You think you’ve conquered it, but it hits back unexpectedly. With cancer, that’s a relapse. With grief that’s a Tuesday.

6. Call up her memory. Be ‘reminded’ she’s already gone. Hurt. Repeat a million times a day. Behold…grief.

7. I’m thinking of visiting the graveyard whilst listening to podcasts of non-grief related topics.

8. A friend told me that his break-up felt like grief. For his sake, I’m hoping he’s wrong.

9. I don’t think we were “built” to handle grief;

10. One indication you may be coping better with grief: When you’re pissed at football results.

11. Grief makes you terrified of old photos.

12. When our loved ones are with us, we often treat them like boring or annoying pieces of uninteresting furniture. But when they’re gone, they’re transfigured into infinite treasures which escape our access.

13. “Asceticism is a way of surrendering to reduced circumstances in a manner that enhances the whole person” — Kathleen Norris. Is grief similar?