Very hot and tired at the top of Lion Rock, Kandy
Grief is a journey too. No, not that seven stages of grief, jump over a few obstacles and arrive at the finish line kind of journey. I don't subscribe to that model of grief at all. Still, it is a journey nonetheless. In fact, a quick search tells me that I've mentioned journeys twenty-three times in this blog. But my experience suggests that grief is not a linear journey at all. It's more cyclical than that, more like a repeating spiral, or a complex web. In one piece I described it as Snakes and Ladders; in grief we're constantly moving forwards and falling back. But even the Snakes and Ladders metaphor implies an end point. It implies that grief is a process that can be completed, a game that can be won, a course that can be graduated from with a diploma in survival. It isn't really like that.
Still, I returned from my trip to Sri Lanka feeling that if there were a diploma to be granted, I would have deserved it. Even before the loss of my mum and Paul, I've dreaded holidays as a single parent. It's not easy taking two children away on your own and spending each day with only children for company. It's not easy making all of the decisions on your own and having responsibility for all of the packing and the paperwork, for all of the driving and all of the carrying of luggage. It's especially not easy when the suitcase that you're carrying includes a hefty package of sadness and loss, when your hand luggage is anxiety. Usually I come back from holidays feeling pleased that I've survived and proud that my children have enjoyed themselves. I don't usually come back feeling that I've had a good time too. But this time I did.
Of course, you might think I jolly well should have had a good time. I've been to Sri Lanka for God's sake. I've been white water rafting and surfing. I've stayed in treehouses and hotels with swimming pools. I've seen elephants and bears and crocodiles. How lucky I am, how privileged. I am. I know. But I'm still proud of myself. Proud of myself for being brave enough to travel to the other side of the world with my little family. Proud that I kept them safe. Proud that I am learning to live wholeheartedly again.
I didn't do the whole journey alone. Once I'd got us from Sheffield to Heathrow and from Heathrow to Colombo, we joined a group tour around the island. Our guide was a Sri Lankan local, who colloquially referred to himself as Sam. Sam has his own story to tell, a story that he wants to write. He's been on his own journey of transformation. Once in the tobacco trade, he swapped his suit for the traveller's life, preferring to be in the business of spreading joy rather than disease. He survived bombs and bullets during the Tamil conflict (he showed me the scars). He stood with tourists watching the sunset four hours before the tsunami destroyed their vantage point. Sam knows a thing or two about close calls. You don't come out of those experiences unscathed. Close calls with death change your perspective on life. Once a Muslim, he now has a more pantheistic belief system and 'takes the good from everywhere'. On our trip he talks about Buddhism and Hinduism with equal reverence and he's changed his views to incorporate the Western philosophy of the travellers that he's encountered. Despite the disapproval of his community, his daughter was allowed to reject seven suitors before she found 'the one'. Sam believes in love.
Sam intersperses his instruction on wildlife and culture to share wisdom and philosophy. On the bus, over the microphone, he tells us that the Singhalese see life's journey reflected in the landscape. Sometimes, he says, the road is flat and easy and sometimes there is a mountain to climb. And then the flat again. Ups and downs, over and over. This is the journey, he says. He talks about the seasons and the passing of time. He tells us that it will be the Singhalese New Year while we're there. When I ask him why New Year is in April he somehow diverts into astrology and numerology and I find myself unexpectedly having a personal reading over the microphone. He tells me that my life has been hard but that my future is bright. He says that though I seem soft on the outside, I am tough inside and that whatever life throws at me, I will survive it. There is something personal though that he says he must talk to me about in private.
Over dinner on the last night, Sam asks me for my advice about writing his life story. Like all writers, he's not sure where to begin. I tell him that constructing a story is like constructing a tour, to think of his life as a series of interesting landmarks. His job is to put them in a compelling order, to tell the story of his journey. I suggest that he begins with a bang to hook the reader. I tell him to start with the explosion and the time when he lost his hearing and didn't know how he ended up where he was, to gradually let the story unravel, the pieces assemble. He lights up. He understands. And then he asks me, 'what happened to him, your partner?' And of course there have been a few partners but I tell him about Paul. 'I can see it,' he says. 'You seem so happy and smiling but you carry it like a stone inside.' He tells me that I will love again. That I will encounter my life partner at a creative gathering, that our eyes will meet across a room. He reinforces my feeling that I won't be internet dating again any time soon.
I return from my holiday feeling jubilant, like I've taken a giant leap on my post-loss journey. The climb up from the depths of grief was harder than climbing Lion Rock in the midday sun (it was really hard) but I've made it to a brighter vantage point, a point from which I can admire the view with the kind of intense thankfulness that, it seems to me, can only come from the close hand knowledge of how quickly things can change. Sudden loss is like a tsunami, the consequences devastating and long-lasting. The scars remain. Still, I feel like I've shot up a ladder on the board. I realise that I am no longer just surviving. Mostly, now, I am thriving. I'm not waiting anymore for a partner to have adventures with (just as well because Sam seems to think the next one might not appear until 2022) but am seizing the day now, living life to the full in a way that I didn't think possible three years ago. I spend the money that my parents left making new memories with my children. I go to the places that Paul would have loved to go, hoping that I carry him with me as I travel. I savour each precious moment knowing that it might be my last, fearing always that it might be my last. I have been on a voyage to the underworld and returned. A transformation has taken place.
And when I get home, I feel it again. The lack of a person to come home to, the urge to phone my mum. I feel bereft once more. I'm not at the end of the journey. The grief is still there. I carry it always like a stone. But it's easier to deal with, lighter to carry. For now, I'm mostly on the flat part of the journey and though the ups and downs will continue, I know that I am strong enough to survive it all.
