By Amie McBye (Social Media Volunteer & Grief Cafe Attendee)
“Sometimes I still find myself in shock, because grief is like waves. Sometimes I’m like, I’m okay, I can function, I can take my kids to school, I feel like I can be involved in my life. And then some days, I’m like, woah, he is never coming back.” Shannon Abloh (Virgil Abloh Foundation) talking to Vogue Australia in 2023 about her late husband, the influential fashion designer Virgil Abloh
I know what she means. A therapist told me I was in denial about losing my brother, but respectfully, I know she was wrong. She didn’t understand – I was simply in shock. It was sudden, unexpected and too much to take in.
How could it be true?
When I was born, a small, three-month-premature baby, my brother was 13 years old and already established as a big lover of Liverpool Football Club, sports, and Run-DMC. He was always there, even when we argued, and he drove me mad.
He was like a protective shield; always walking me to the train station after I would visit. Always walking on the inside, he insisted, closer to the road just in case, which made me laugh. He was always my big brother and I was always his little sister.
A world where he is not around is a strange place and in some ways, does not make sense. I don’t know if it ever will, at least not in the same way. There is an empty space in my life where he used to be. It’s like the narrative of how life is supposed to be has malfunctioned. Not quite right.
There is a particular kind of isolation that comes from losing someone and I don’t think that I have ever felt as alone as I did in that moment that I found out he was gone.
The Grief Cafe came along for me at the right moment and I found out about it by accident, from the East of Eden email newsletter (I do Pilates there). The Pilates was the only time I had for myself amongst death admin and trying to make sense of how things were now. But at a time when I felt alone, isolated and a bit of a mess, I felt grateful to have gone alone to a Grief Cafe. Even though I didn’t know what to expect and was nervous, once there I felt like I was speaking a language that people understood. It was a relief. I mean, there is not even a pressure to talk at all.
Generally day to day, I felt like an alien and very vulnerable all the time, but it was different there. It wasn’t about finding answers, but having a space to be where I was. Everyone there has lost someone (or people), they were always kind to me and listened every time that I have been to one.
The thing is, the people that know you are used to how you are ordinarily. But losing someone can shake your foundations and change you and people can’t always cope with you not being as you were. It’s what they know and how they are used to you. Change is hard and scary, especially when your life fells like it’s not as you know it anymore. The world can go from technicolour to grey in a blink of an eye. Sometimes often multiple times during one day. It’s hard to explain this, so I found it so heartening to not have to.
Having been to a few sessions now, I know that it is okay to be exactly how I am when I go to a Grief Cafe. Plus I always feel better when I go to one. And that helps.
A link to Shannon Abloh Vogue Australia interview quoted: