Kerry-Anne Allerston
Image: Supplied
We are born, then we live a life, and then we die. It’s so strange to imagine that we just get placed somewhere and in so many different situations. Like, for example, being in a job that you have to do and then you retire. You don’t know what the company is going to be like, who your colleagues are or what the benefits are going to be. It just seems like a lot of us keep drawing the short straw and others have it so much easier. It’s all relative. It just sometimes feels unfair when you look at how some people are really put into the worst jobs with the worst colleagues. You know what I’m saying. And I just don’t think we have the right tools to deal with loss in this life, no matter our circumstance. It’s what makes most of us human in the way we feel and the way we break, but I wish there was a way to make it all just a little easier.
Imagine we could press those old school viewfinders and see where the loved ones we’ve lost have gone next and how happy they are on the other side of here. What if we all get born, live a very healthy, happy life and then our expiry date comes along and it’s the same for everyone. I’m not sure what I’m really asking for here or if I’m wishing for the right thing, but all I know is that as human beings we are not good at losing the things we love. “’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” was written by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson. It appears in his 1850 elegy In Memoriam A.H.H., written to mourn the death of someone in his life called Arthur Henry Hallam.
I’ve mentioned this quote in a previous article and it’s always food for thought because in the most difficult of times, and when you’re right in the middle of the world’s worst grief, there are moments when you think you’d rather not have this kind of pain and that maybe it would’ve been better to not have it at all, so basically erasing the pain and along with it the love and the relationship at the same time. It’s all those stages of grief and all the different emotions you go through and, as they say, it gets a bit easier with time. Does it though? I think people die from having a broken heart and it seems very plausible to me because there’s nothing as painful as that of a broken heart.
I also wonder how you could or should prepare for loss if you know it’s inevitable. If someone you love is suffering with an illness, for example, what are the steps you should take if you were able to think clearly and if you had some kind of guideline to it all? I’ve experienced so much loss that I often wonder how I’d like to be treated in a tough situation and what I’d like to do if I knew time wasn’t on my side.
My aunt passed away today and I’m pretty sure it was all brought on by watching her youngest daughter slowly pass away and suffer terribly from one cancer after the other taking over her life and her body. She got diagnosed with dementia and various other illnesses not too long after my cousin passed away, and this brings me back to heartbreak and how terrible it is for any human and the toll it takes on one’s body, health and whole life really.
This aunt of mine and I had our birthdays a day apart and we were close. I mean mad close. I’ll tell you a little story. I left home at age two. Yip, thinking back I don’t know how, but I packed my little handbag and off I went. I walked about 14 blocks all the way to my aunt’s house and I’m not sure how I found my way or even made it that far all alone, but I did. (Ps I have the world’s best mom, but I obviously also have all the stealth moves and should work for MI5 like James Bond because how I escaped unnoticed for so long, who knows.)
Anyway, I got to my aunt Patsy’s gate and when she came out and spotted me she nearly had a nervous breakdown. She immediately asked where my mom was and then started having a mini breakdown. Bewildered, she proceeded to sprint inside to buzz my mom on the landline. When I was asked what the heck I was doing there, I very calmly exclaimed that I was hungry and came for a snack.
She was the kind of aunt who looked after everyone. The one that sorted out arguments, bandaged you up after a fall and packed lunchboxes for her kids and husband until they were all way too old to still be getting them. She baked and sewed and did all those motherly kinds of things. She was the smartest person I knew because she’d finish all the blockbusters and crosswords in the magazines, and she was kind, gentle, funny and so very loved.
When I started seeing tiny signs of what would eventually take her away completely, I started asking the questions. The ones you shouldn’t or wouldn’t ask. I asked which songs she’d like played at her funeral. I also always complimented her on how phenomenal a role model she was to so many and the impact she’d made on those around her. I told her that her grandchildren would live full, beautiful lives because of how she raised them, as I knew it weighed heavily on her heart, constantly wondering what would happen to them if she wasn’t around. Nobody knows how things will pan out but the kind words brought a smile and a little comfort nonetheless.
I also wanted to record her leaving messages for them for when they got married or matriculated. Milestone messages that would be there forever. Reminders and advice for when they needed it most and she wasn’t around anymore to give it to them, but it would be okay because years would’ve passed and more than it being something painful to watch, it would be something special and comforting because the years would’ve strengthened the heart a bit and time would’ve healed the rawness of that initial loss.
I got to the songs. I know the ones I’m supposed to play next week, but I never got to the video recordings. Maybe it was a silly idea or maybe it would’ve made all the difference. I don’t know. We don’t know. All I know is I like to think that the people I love just go somewhere over the rainbow and that we see them again and that we’re always connected in some way or another. It makes it all seem a tiny bit less insane.
You know, the pain of loving someone so hard and then they are erased from your life in the blink of an eye. It’s such a wild concept and one too hard to even comprehend. But it happens every second of every day to every single one of us. What blows my mind is that people choose to start wars and break up families and loved ones on purpose. Choosing to take someone else’s life is a whole other thing. Like how even. We’re all out here trying our best to hold on by a thread and others are getting their scissors out to snip that thread you’re desperately hanging on to.
All I’m saying is love hard. And try not to have too many regrets. Guilt, hatred and anger are the little bugs that hurt you from the inside, so stay as strong and positive as you can and just do whatever feels right to you. There’s no rule book out there, or not one that I know of anyway, for tough times and how to deal with these situations.
I can’t go to my aunt for snacks anymore, but I know I went often enough to cash in on all the cuddles, stories, snacks and love when she was around and before it all got too bad and she got too ill. I still went during the tough times over the last few months and I played music to her and I held her and I tried to get my heart ready a little more every day for what I knew was coming.
No matter how much you prepare, that phone call will always shatter you and your heart, but I start grieving slowly, a little bit each day, so it’s not too much of a shock to my system when the time comes. I also took little snapshots of the silly things she did that I loved about her throughout my whole life. I do it with all my loved ones, like an instant camera shooting a beautiful memory.
They’re still in my memory library and I’ve been going back to those little memories and having a giggle. I think about her running after my uncle with the broom when he walked in and she’d just mopped the kitchen floor. I remember the smell all the way down the driveway when she was baking sausage rolls and milk tarts. And I’ll never forget how she loved. How she made people feel. And how grateful I am to have had her in my life.
If you’re going through the worst time right now, then I hope you find peace and feel loved and that your heart gets stronger, even if just a tiny bit, each and every day.