waiting for sunnier days ;

Does anyone ever know how to grieve?

To me, family has always been made. I have grown up with my paternal side of the family being ‘not actually my uncle’ uncle, ‘not biologically but’, it was normal to me. My biological grandfather passed away long before the existence of my brother, let alone me, he exists to me solely through stories and photographs. 

Instead, I have a Mike. Mike has been family long before I was born. Mike is all I’ve ever really known. Mike has always been sick. I’ve known that for as long as I can remember, my mum’s voice would echo in my head– “don’t play around too much with Mike, his lungs don’t work quite like yours.” We were good, Mike would take us around garden centres, talk to me about plants, spot fish in the ponds and hold my brother back from trying to climb in. Even at 20, Mike and I would still get lost in garden centres, eventually making it back to the others who’d already made it most of the way through their first coffee. Mike would help me choose my breakfast, we’d always go to the counter and order together. It was routine. 

I wonder if others feel a sense of regret when someone they love passes– do we all naturally feel this with loss? I wish I hadn’t slept in that time and still went to breakfast, I wish I had stopped by their house more often, I wish I had spent more time with him in the last few years. I would do anything to have one more garden centre breakfast. But I know there’s no use in feeling frustrated with my younger self, even the me of six months ago. Or feeling envy of those times younger me took for granted, that the me of now will never get to experience again. 

Grief, to me, is love and memories. I am grieving for the man who loved me as a granddaughter, who I loved as a grandfather– even though we are not biologically related. The man I have built so many memories with in my (not quite) 21 years of living, the man who will live on in my memories. My grief is dotted around. It lives the spotting of fish. It lives in my houseplants, the ones he helped choose. It lives in our favourite sweets. It lives in emails, stolen marshmallows and Christmas gatherings and warm hugs.

It lives in garden centre breakfasts. 

Shawna Lemay wrote in Transactions With Beauty, Gifts and Limitations:

 “Although I love flowers very much, I won't see them when I'm gone. So in lieu of flowers:  Buy a book of poetry written by someone still alive, sit outside with a cup of tea, a glass of wine, and read it out loud, or silently, by yourself, or to someone. … In lieu of flowers,  I would wish for you to flower.  I would wish for you to blossom, to open, to be beautiful. I would wish for you to align your soul, for a time, with flowers.” 

 In lieu of flowers, here’s to more garden centre breakfasts. 

 Beginnings are hard. 

 Beginnings are hard, thank you Substack. I have been flicking back and forth over starting this page for… probably 6 months, finally started to set it up a month ago and at long last, we made it. And yes, I am aware I am cross-posting this to tumblr. I thought I would give it a go on both, as I’m trying something a little new here to my content online entirely.