A couple of years ago, I read Cariad Lloyd’s book You Are Not Alone, a guide to help people through the process of grieving. It charts Cariad’s loss of her own father, but one chapter that stood out to me was about significant markers of time – when you pass the 10-year mark, then the 20-year mark. These seemed like such long periods of time, and I asked myself how I might feel when I reached the 10-year anniversary of my husband Rob’s death by suicide. Would I would feel worse, or more removed from it?
The death anniversary for me is such precise evidence of that. I didn’t know how I would feel in the first year of it, and I tried to meet it as it arrived. But I started to feel terrible around six weeks before the date itself – depressive, indecisive, unable to socialise much.
The moment the day passed, the cloud hanging over me dispersed. I hadn’t realised how heavy all of that sadness and pain had been until it lifted. The following year, I wanted to spend it alone, but my parents again asked if I wanted to spend it with them. This time it was different. Instead of that depression landing six weeks before, this time it was four weeks. And although I appreciated my parents’ gesture, I felt as if I had to curate my grief for them. I didn’t want to talk about it, I just wanted to be left alone.
This time, I was alone by choice. I didn’t want to speak to anyone, see anyone. I listened to Rob’s playlists that he’d left behind like an astral trail on my Spotify, I walked in the vast expanse of fields and meadows, I looked at pictures of him, and I wore his clothes. I just wanted to be left alone, in madness, in grief.
The following year I forced myself to go to Florence. I flew out a week before the anniversary, with plans to fly home the day after. At first, it was fine. I went to the market I knew and loved, ate ridiculously good cheese, fresh bread and tomatoes. But around day four, I started to feel heavy in my body. By day five – around three days before the anniversary – I had a panic attack on my way to a restaurant. When I got back to the Airbnb, I booked an earlier flight home and cried on the plane. It felt as if I was never going to move past this, no matter how much time had passed.
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As someone who has actively pushed against the heaviness that sits in my body ahead of a death anniversary, someone who has forced themselves into a different environment as if that will be the cure, someone who has tried almost every iteration of “overcoming” the death day – none of it works. It has taught me that just because I want something to be different, it doesn’t mean it will be.
While I have sought understanding around the things that mark Rob’s death day – the heaviness that begins a week before, the need to be alone – I am not sure I will ever arrive at it. Perhaps it is some higher consciousness that wants to protect me, to not feel compelled to make space for other people during a time when I really can’t. Or perhaps it is like a monument to mark the moment a great love passed through the world and beyond, and it requires standing still for a time.
For confidential advice and support, the Samaritans are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Call for free on 116 123 or visit samaritans.org.
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