Turmulent Times
It’s been a strange week. Full of ups and downs. The downs have been quite deep to be honest, but like all bad – terrible – news, in this case I have thought long and hard about what it means for me and my life. Last week I discovered a friend of mine had suddenly died. For this piece I’m going to call her Amy, (not her real name). The rush of grief was overwhelming. I’d not felt anything like that in such a long time. I was taken by surprise, side-swiped by the sheer shock of it all. I cried and cried and felt strangely numb. Later, I wondered if I had the ‘right’ to be so upset. Another friend, similarly saddened, felt the same way. How we deal with grief is strange. We still don’t really do it very well. Why is it that we feel that only the immediate family has the right to be affected by the sudden and untimely death of a person? We live with our spouses and children, and of course they are our number one concern. However, we also choose to spend time with others, we socialise, have friends, and spend more […]