Our Stories
My heart feels broken all over again
I am heartbroken, I used to like going to visit my Mum and putting bits and pieces on her grave that I knew she liked. Especially the flowers, I used to buy her fresh flowers twice a week when she was alive. Now it just looks like a muddy plot, not my Mum's special place. I have nowhere to grieve and shed a tear and have a few words with my precious Mum. I feel so desolate.
My heart feels broken all over again.
I am now an orphan, adrift with no anchor
When Dad passed away it was as if the rock to which we were all anchored was torn from under us. It was sudden, it was unexpected, it was cruel. We cried, we grieved, we hurt and ached with loss.
Then Mum became ill, none of us had started to heal from the loss of Dad and then we had to watch our mum slowly disappear before our eyes. She cried for him, she needed his strength but she lost her fight and we were left bereft.
They are buried together, together again in a grave that we tend. We go there to talk, to somehow feel closer to them. In good times and bad we go to them and tend their grave, plant flowers in spring and summer and we used to place artificial flowers in the headstone vases to make sure that there is always colour in the grey of the winter.
We had a lantern, we used to light a candle for them when we tended the grave and as we left we would turn and see the small light flickering as if in a wave. 'Night night Nanny and Grandad' our children used to say.
Our grief is not different to anyone else I hear you say, but we think it is. Every person who has suffered a loss grieves in a way that is personal to them. Some are very vocal about how they feel, whilst others are softly spoken and keep their pain to themselves.
My own thoughts are that grief is a journey, we all know where it starts but where does it end. It never ends. It gets easier to cope with at times then suddenly something happens maybe something joyful and you turn to them to tell them but then remember that they are no longer there and it hurts. It hurts so much.
When we go to the graveyard we are not just going there to make sure that it is tidy, we go there to be near our foundations. Our lives are entwined with our family and even when they have left us, the invisible bonds are still there and will always be there. There is so much sadness in this world, so much we have to ensure but the bonds we have with our loved ones enrich our lives.
There are things that are important, there are laws and rules that are there for a reason but to take from the graves of our loved ones, to remove the lantern to remove the flowers to remove the small cards and notes of sentiment, even to remove a toy from a child's resting place does not make the graveyard tidy.
It makes it soulless, it makes it feel like we have lost our loved ones over and over again until the pain is so hard to bare that we break and wonder if we will ever be free of the pain. Some hurt so deeply that they cannot bare to go back to the graveyard, and that is so sad, so upsetting because there has to be a place to rest your head. To stop the world for just a few moments and remember the love.
I have met so many people at the graveyard, I have made so many friends over the years. We share something that is so special and just by being there and even just a simple chat or a wave or a smile makes our journeys so worthwhile. Our grief will always be there, we have loved and we have lost.
All we ask for is peace and understanding that we are all different.
Those who manage the graveyard have known for some time the pain they are causing, can they not just stop.
