The Duck-billed Platypus
My pet name for Grief
This is a story for a Grief Playbook that doesn’t exist…because each story is different, as is every day that I navigate a sea of emotions and numbness that come at me in waves.
Grief is an uncouth animal. It springs out of nowhere with neither invitation nor provocation.
On the first day that felt like at least a week, when we discovered my son had been in an accident and didn’t make it, that we lost him…It was raining non-stop for 4 days. Fairly unusual for April in Barcelona. I could not figure out if I was cold or hot, so off the jacket went, on the jumper came. Off again and on again one more time, twice, maybe thrice, before I slumped my face onto the furry purple jacket on the table and sobbed how he could no longer feel hot; nor would he ever feel cold. How unspeakably final that was, to have no concept of hot or cold, and to have no capacity for concept at all.
Several days after that, this rude uncouth feeling came to me in the middle of a perfectly sunny moment one fine day. I cried and I howled out my pain when I realized I would never see his beautiful face again — that it would never come through the door of our house, always smiling and always hungry.
I realized then why some people move house after a loved one died who used to live there.
On the first evening we could go out to a restaurant after the covid19 lockdown, about a month later, we booked an outside table at our favourite ramen restaurant. I was happy to be out with my husband, to see our two sons together, and be with our middle child’s long-term girlfriend — my ‘almost daughter’. As 5 of us were about to sit, I’m sure my oldest son saw my face contort ever so slightly and on the brink of losing it. The waitress who knew us for having eaten at this restaurant for years had 6 chairs set out for us. My son quickly announced there was an extra chair and took it out of my sight.
I understood then why some people leave the town they live in, after someone has passed, for fear of grief finding them in the middle of a public place, surrounded by perfectly normal everyday courtesies.
Last week I was lost in a tv box set I particularly like. The central character, the first daughter, decided she would surprise her boyfriend with a customised fortune cookie after dinner at their favourite Chinese restaurant. The cookie would contain a “will you marry me?’ paper fortune inside it. I went from feeling fairly awesome to devastated in 0.02 seconds. I felt that all too familiar numbness creep in and it sunk in: He is never going to propose or be proposed to. I will never have a grand kid to him. This ending is not what any parent foresees themselves dealing with: that their kid is frozen in time — as grown up as he can possibly be, because growing up any further is no longer humanly possible in this lifetime you’re still living in.
It’s now 60 days after the fact, exactly, almost to the hour, when I painfully discovered that my son passed away at the age of 20, after a stupid senseless accident during covid19 that had nothing to do with the virus.
I did something pretty brilliant for work today, and then lost the plot when I found myself about to phone him to tell him all about it.
I now understand and can see how others would just give up work and technology altogether.
Every day is different for me. Sometimes I’m crushing it at this grieving thing and cry only a little. Yesterday I told him off, sitting in his old room like a sad metaphor myself, then cried my eyes out. Some days like today, I could kick and slap this Grief Thing senseless— as ugly and wrong as a duck-billed platypus — and then sleep all the way to Tuesday.
It’s only Thursday.
If you are grieving or know a parent who has lost their child, share this or share my earlier unlisted story. It’s about what I’m learning while staring at our unfinished scrabble games; while attempting to crawl out of the deepest sorrow I’ve ever known. While grieving in the first few days, I sought words to read and there were none that I could find. Maybe in some strange way, my words and experiences can help in some small way.
