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Kiran Aldridge
Kiran Sidhu … ‘I am not saying people are intentionally callous, but, generally, they do not know how to deal with another person’s grief.’ Photograph: Amit Lennon/Guardian
Kiran Sidhu … ‘I am not saying people are intentionally callous, but, generally, they do not know how to deal with another person’s grief.’ Photograph: Amit Lennon/Guardian

A dirty secret called grief

This article is more than 8 years old
After her mother’s death, Kiran Sidhu found she was expected to ‘move on’ with such bewildering haste that her only option was to conceal her sorrow

At around midnight tonight, there will be a clandestine group of people logging on to their computers. They are not interested in Tinder, making stealthy purchases or Facebook. No, these people are grievers and I’m one of them.

Nine months after my mother died at the age of 62, I have found myself concealing what feels like a dirty secret – I’m still grieving. Most people would agree that after such a momentous loss, grief cannot be measured in months. It takes its time and so should we. So, why do we grievers feel the need to go underground with our feelings?

After living with grief for nine months, the world has never felt so divided to me as it does now; there are the grievers and then there are those oblivious to the black hole left in one’s life when someone significant dies. It is because of this division that so many of us visit forums for the bereaved in search for solace.

An anonymous contributor to the bereaved community section on Macmillan Cancer Support’s website posted the following: “Grief, I’ve realised, is like a dirty little secret. People who haven’t been through pain like ours don’t really want to know but want to be seen to care.”

It is true, I believe, that people have a finite amount of sympathy to dispense before they expect the bereaved person to move on. As a griever, I have come to realise this and so my grief, to some, has become a secret.

Kiran with her mother, Piari Sidhu.
Kiran Aldridge as a child with her mother, Piari Sidhu.

When someone asks you how you are for the 100th time after, say, seven months, you begin to reply “OK” – there’s only so much about your grief you can tell another person. I am not saying people are intentionally callous, but, generally, they do not know how to deal with another person’s grief. It’s not convenient for them to know the truth. What if you were to tell the truth – “I’m not OK”? You have just handed the person a hot potato. I think the natural reaction, especially for family members, is to “fix the problem”. But it’s important to point out that we grievers do not expect you to fix anything. You cannot fix it.

There’s a miscalculated expectation on both sides; the griever thinks that people expect them to have moved on and the questioner thinks the griever wants to to be saved. This produces unnecessary anxiety for both parties.

Like the embarrassed griever and the well-meaning friend, our society dances politely around death. We’re inundated with information about the latest super-foods and their health benefits. No one just says, “We’re going to die.” Full stop.

Death is the uninvited dinner guest at the banquet of life. Our inability to talk about death has left us ill-equipped to talk about grief.

Bereavement forums are a lifeline for people like me. They provide a safe haven for the things we dare not share with the rest of the world. In hushed tones we disclose regrets about not spending enough time with our deceased loved ones. This, I have come to realise, is a universal regret. Even if we had spent all our waking hours with the deceased, we would still wish for more.

This is a revelation when we all seem to live as if we have all the time in the world, one that would benefit us all.

I’ve been reading about addiction to grief. It’s an impulse I can understand. When you feel the gut-wrenching pain of loss, that’s when you feel closest to them. To feel their presence is to feel the loss. It’s a double-edged sword. The pain is exquisite. There’s also a desire to be back at the funeral when you were surrounded by family and friends who understood your pain. Months on, the understanding has gone but you still need the comfort.

With passing time, my grief looks different to the outside world. Earlier on, externally I looked the same as I felt internally: a mess. Now my appearance tells a different a story, but inside I haven’t changed.

It is no secret that we live in a throwaway society and that goes for bereavement too. People don’t want to hear too much about your grief when they are too busy living. It forces them to look in the mirror and confront their own mortality. Thinking too much about grief is maudlin and thinking too much about death seems macabre and wasteful.

I have chosen to examine the open wound of my grief and almost befriend it. It has visited and cast its shadow over my life. I can only live with it. I am open to what it has to teach me, that when those we love die, they leave holes in our lives that can never be filled. Grief is the fate of us all. Maybe it’s about time we all had an honest conversation about it.

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