Other Losses

 Since I started this blog a few days ago, Queen Elizabeth II has died, aged 96 - plus my next-door neighbour's husband, also over 90.  My poor neighbour is utterley bereft.  Her husband had been suffering from dementia for a couple of years but his condition had worsened recently and he was in hospital for a couple of weeks before dying in his sleep.  He and his wife had also lost one of their sons earlier this year - quite near the time my husband died.  She has, therefore, lost two of her loved ones in quick succession - and she is in here eighties.  So sad and hard for her to bear.  Caring for a husband with dementia made it impossible for her to grieve for her son...and now she's bearing the grief of both losses.

Sorry as I am for the Queen's passing, the contrast in our situations has hit me quite hard.  Driving back from the hospital following my father's death (in 2013) and from the hospice in May this year after my husband died (both late at night), I found it so hard to accept that other people's lives were just carrying on as normal whilst mine had been stopped in its tracks.  It was difficult to comprehend.  What a contrast with the death of a Queen!  The entire country seems to have ground to a halt, all TV and radio programmes have been replaced by mawkish re-runs of every Royal documentary ever made about the Queen from her birth through her 96 years.  I'm sorry for her family that they've lost their Mother, Grandmother etc but the endless, sentimentality of the programming is wearing very thin and the constant reminders of death and funeral arrangements (going on for nearly a fortnight) is hugely triggering.  Just at the point when I'm trying to start thinking about my own needs, I'm plunged into the middle of the nation's grief.  

I can't help thinking that we, non-Royals, would benefit from a more formal, structured mourning period.  In less modern times, I believe there were more rituals to be observed; wearing black for a prescribed period and then gradually moving through grey, purple, lavender over some months.  I can now understand that this would have been a visual clue to the outside world that you were suffering a painful, personal loss and should be treated with care and consideration.  Perhaps it would help others to realise that my head is still befuddled and to excuse my regular memory lapses.We seem to be all too modern these days to observe such things and, I now believe, we are poorer for it.  I need some clue to remind even my closest friends that my husband is now longer at my side and they should treasure their own spouses.  In a purely selfish way, I don't want to be reminded of how lucky they are to still be half of a couple.