THINGS I LEARNED ABOUT GRIEF IN 2024

(Though I Really Didn’t Want To...)

Should you ever find yourself scrolling through social media’s undergrowth, searching for emotional sustenance in the face of devastating grief, you will be confronted by a lot of information which is strongly Grief-Affirmative.

Which sounds like a good thing, right?

However, because we live in an atomised age in which we are encouraged to be the centre of our own universes (rather than, for example, being mere mitochondria ‘shroomily-interconnected), much well-meaning bereavement support includes relentless affirmations of your Great Pain.

Because, let’s face it, both you and your Great Pain are uniquely special and your loss must be honoured, ad infinitum. And to this end social media will not encourage you to do anything other than stay exactly where you are — that is, suspended, timelessly exploring your Grief. Take a deep breath, then, as you prepare to deep-dive into the Grief Industrial Complex—the place where late-stage Capitalism steals your soul while happily affirming that you have one.

And that’ll be 500 quid, ta.

Understand that your deep and profound well of sorrow is a fantastic space for people to sell you stuff; everything from the obvious and potentially helpful (therapy and retreats) to absurdo-bling (your deceased’s ashes reconfigured as jewellery) via groovy *tech*; voice-cloning and image manipulation A.I. can almost persuade you the dead are still here, with us. This idea was quite seductive for me — when he died, in September 2023, my 21 year old physics-grad son had been hoping to work in A.I: ‘You have no idea, mum, just how much it’s going to change things!’.

To which my response is now an eye-roll: ‘Mate, you literally had no idea. Midjourney can now draw fingers...’.

Bottom-line: don’t believe the Grief-Hype. Even when confronted by a devastating loss (and there is arguably no loss more devastating than the sudden accidental death of a happy, healthy son on the very brink of his adult life — and if you want to argue that step away from me right now!) I do not personally affirm the notification I received last night, December 31 2024, from ‘Griefstagram’:

Soon, there will be lots of posts by people sharing how much they achieved in 2024… But it’s OK if all you did this year was get through it

Is it, though? Really? What else did they do all year—those poor people whose only ‘achievement’ was to ‘get through’ 365 consecutive days?

In truth, the majority of them have — like me — navigated their Daily Grief alongside the rest of their life: work, family, finances, getting the car insured and boiler serviced, dealing with bad health — their own or others’, physical and mental — while navigating all the post-death ‘sadmin’ that exists for every modern dead person (yes, even those without Wills and probate). At the same time they probably also attempted to nourish their important friendships and relationships… while handling the ending of others with as much grace and dignity as they were capable of mustering (as if there hadn’t been enough tough endings already).

Because there is no escaping that there is a huge post-death/in-grief learning curve with one’s existing friendships/relationships, some of which —swiftly and unexpectedly but also essentially — fall by the wayside.

Nobody ever sees this coming so it’s necessary to dig very deep while remaining very strong and ‘boundaried’ in order to cope. I had to let a formerly very close friend go last year—a process made harder by the fact that I had recently supported them through their own tough emotional times. That they then turned out to be unable to accommodate mine is, ultimately, entirely forgivable and understandable. However, pushing back against my pain by deploying the Rubicon-crossing line: ‘And I’m mourning the death of my marriage!’ was a mis-step too far for me.

‘Oh, yes’, said one parent-who-has-also-lost-their-child with whom I shared this anecdote. ‘You just wait and see! Your address book is going to be completely reconfigured...’. So, clearly, there are many forks in this road I never expected to travel.

Yet, on top of the painful shit there are also numerous unexpected creative ‘achievements’, too — the kind of stuff that makes living the rest of your life (and navigating others’) not merely ‘manageable’ but also fundamentally bigger, and richer.

For example, I guarantee that even if you find yourself nearly re-broken by the personal weaknesses and/or failings of some people, equally you will be blown away by the beauty, kindness and generosity of others. Look on this as a new cocktail to sip occasionally, for the rest of your life: if the ‘old’ version of you — the one without the dead kid, for example — was always a sunny Caipiriña, it’s now perfectly OK to be an Old Fashioned.

I call these minor ‘achievements’ soul leaps.

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend following my own ‘creative’ approach for managing my grief while honouring Jackson’s memory—which was to put on a full-blown music festival that while it was an exceptionally beautiful event was also intensely stressful! However, other things (the creation of a ‘Jackson Peacock Physics Prize’, for example, and an annual charity football match at his old school) were not only collaborative, rewarding and do-able, they were also—in their own, less performative ways — as important a demonstration of my love and grief as ‘JackoFest’…

At this point, I probably need to say that this ‘stack is primarily aimed at those whose Big Grief is around a profoundly unexpected loss. Losing my child meant the correct order of things was instantly fucked-up; I not only lost Jackson as a person in the here-and-now but, obviously, also his future — the whole of his life’s journey up until the end of my own.

Meanwhile, somebody’s mid-life loss of an aged parent (and both of mine are gone) is the correct order of things. I am not sad for them—and I will not accompany you should you decide to wallow in that loss instead of, perhaps, moving into the full-blown adulthood you have now been gifted, with your head held high.

Bearing all of that in mind, then, here’s a New Year-orientated distillation of what I’ve learned (and am still learning) about Grief, the hard way, over the past 12 months:

· Grief is mutable — though not containable

· Even tragic loss does not mean that every minute of every day needs to feel like the end of the world...

· ...And if it does, maybe start asking yourself why that is?

· Because, quite simply, there is life after death. It’s just that your life (their Afterlife is above my pay grade!) is a completely different life to the one you were either expecting, or had hoped for

· If you lose a young person and find that holding on to the idea of meaningful life is incredibly hard work, I suggest spending as much time as possible with your young person’s friends... Their (very different but powerful) relationship with the person you loved can help you heal. (Plus — if you’re brave enough to ask! — you’ll also find out stuff about your kid you would literally never otherwise have learned).

· Though you often miss your child so much it feels as though your heart will explode, hold on to the fact that they were sometimes a complete and utter pain in the arse

· Taking them off their Dead Kid pedestal helps you to navigate the difference between your own genuine and heartfelt love for a real person (who is now no less real but just happens to be physically dead) and the relentlessly consumerist, powerfully sentimental grief-grift that will inevitably chase your metaphorical ambulance

· The purpose of the grift is to capitalise on — indeed, to monetise — your pain, so remember: the arc of your grief does not contain hyperlinks! However, while you can’t shop your way out of your pain that doesn’t mean you can’t shop parallel to it. From purchasing my son’s atom-shaped urn to buying books, via commissioning an animé portrait of Jackson in a scene from ‘Spirited Away’ I’ve bought stuff that makes me smile/weep, knowing it would make him smile/weep, too…

· If you work hard to separate your very real love and real loss from late-stage capitalism’s grift around that loss — and fight the sentimentality trap! — you will successfully navigate your grief.

Though — it almost goes without saying — this is a) not remotely easy, and b) also work, so not passive either. (Plus, many people are instinctively perfectly comfortable with outward expressions of sentimentality. I’m just… not. I think it is a lazy ersatz comfort-zone for emotional cowards. But — of course! — I’m probably just horrible)

· The ongoing successful navigation of great loss—and its attendant profound pain—marks you out as an adult. Own that.

· Also, ask your dead person for help... in whatever way works for you. If you have Faith, then pray. If you don’t, just find spaces to ‘chat’— silently or otherwise. That’s a meditation — whether you like that word or not! — that can (at the very least) take you to fine places of quiet, calm connectivity

· At the very most, it will take you somewhere beyond that...

· For example, the moments when I feel most intensely sad are the precise moments I feel most connected to Jackson. Moments when (and indulge me here for a moment as I tip-toe tentatively towards dangerous sentimentality!) I feel his arms around me (I don’t...), whispering (he isn’t...): ‘You’re still a crazy old lady but you’re smashing it, Marge...’.

Wishing all my subscribers the very best for 2025—thank you for your ongoing support. This year marks my 40^th year as a journalist. While I still do not charge for these occasional ‘stacks the fact remains that writing is how I earn my living. If you think I’m pretty good at it (you subscribe, so that’s a start) and are respectful of the time it takes to create this (for eg, these 1500 words took most of the day to write and edit) then please feel free to Buy Me A Coffee (or two, or three)… Though call me a ‘grief-grifter’ at your peril!

Kate x

CREDITS JackoFest Movie by Kit O’Connor / JackoFest Poster: Collage by Martin O’Neill Graphic Design by Dave Brown / ‘Spirited Away’ Image: Dang Hien Bui / Jackson in a field (below) by Guy Pryke