The time is out of joint…

I bear a burden in my soul and in my heart; the burden of grief. It has lost me friendships, it has lost me opportunities. Sometimes it has lost me totally.

Grief stays with you like an unwanted child, clinging, needy, never to be forgotten. It is a part of you though sometimes you yearn for it to feel separate and reversible, you have to accept that it is not.

The story of what happened. I lost my PhD supervisor and friend Gary Banham in year four of my PhD. He had become a father figure to me and his death hit me very hard as, like the death of my father, it was untimely, unfair, and a great loss to all who loved him. I wanted to make him proud and I wanted to write a tribute. I submitted a paper to the UK Kant Society and it was accepted; a prestigious achievement for someone who did not yet have their PhD. This was the start of my career, my success, and how fitting my first big UK conference paper was a tribute to Gary.

I worked hard on the paper and had secured a full time job so it was difficult and stressful. But that’s not the whole story. My mum was very ill. She has been ill since I was a child and it has always affected me mentally and physically.

My mum was ill, and every time she got ill I thought she was going to die. She came pretty close quite a few times. I was presenting my first paper for the UKKS as a tribute to Gary and my mum got ill, very ill this time. I ploughed on, balancing the new job with this golden opportunity to pay a fitting tribute to Gary. Gary my teacher who was unlike anyone I have ever met, he really got the best out of me. When my father died, Gary had supervised me to finish my Masters dissertation. I told him I just wanted to pass, so much had happened, and I just wanted to pass. I had to change the whole topic as it was too upsetting to work on what I had been writing before. Gary pushed me and pushed me, when I received my mark I cried. I cried because I realised that Gary wasn’t content for me to pass, he pushed me to do the best that I could, he wanted me to succeed and grow and he wouldn’t be rushed. I got a distinction.

I got a distinction and so many things made sense. Sometimes you don’t know how much someone means to you or how much they are fighting for you until you see results that you didn’t think were possible.

I made it to the UKKS conference and was staying with a friend of mine in London. The stress was unbelievable; I remember thinking I have never felt so stressed in my entire life. I was going to bed late (working on the paper) and getting up early to work on it and practise. I had a constant pain in my kidneys and back. I realised that one of the thinkers I was criticising in my paper was also presenting at the conference, so I really wanted to do a good job; to make Gary proud and to show what I could do.

I presented the paper, I took questions, I did my best and I was honest about it being a tribute to Gary. He was popular both for his work on Kant and his personality; lots of people at the conference knew him. I felt it was a fitting tribute (and it is to be included in a forthcoming book dedicated to Gary’s work).

At the conference dinner that evening I got a phone call and had to leave. My mum had taken a turn for the worse and she was in hospital. My brother sounded scared but I somehow convinced myself that this was just like all the other times she had gone into hospital, even when he told me she was hallucinating and had heard her own mother’s voice.

The next day, I headed back to the conference with my back and kidneys aching. My sister in law rang me; I was stood outside the conference buildings as she told me that the hospital staff were advising family to get to the hospital as soon as possible.

The train journey back from London to Manchester was the worst journey of my life. I wasn’t sure I would ever see my mother alive again. I wanted to make it so badly, I couldn’t speak, I texted my friend to tell her what was happening, she said some words to me which helped, she said: ‘She will always be with you’.

I did get to the hospital, and I did see my mum before she died two days later. I got to tell her about the conference, I said: ‘I did it mum, there were about 50 people there, about 40 of them were men, about 10 were women, and there was one working class person; me’. She said ‘I’m proud of you’.

I feel that I need to put what happened, the way it happened, and the time it happened into some context so that I can say something like: no matter what happened I will continue to pursue my goal, that’s what she would have wanted. But I can’t do that, I can’t wrap up the ending like that, I don’t think I will ever be able to do that. Losing the person who loves you most in the world, it was the worst thing that has ever happened to me.

Writing about this helps me to let go of feelings, it doesn’t make them go away but it stops them from existing only inside my head and the closest I can get to moving on is granting a space for the grief by sharing it.