I’m a late bloomer in so many ways, one of those being that my first real dance with grief came when I was 34. Prior to that, I had lost my beloved first dog Crystal, which had been devastating at the time, but at almost 20 years old and having lost her sight and hearing, it was a natural and expected end that gave her more peace than staying with us seemed to. And we wanted nothing more than for her suffering to cease. Crystal’s passing, though so sad, seemed the most humane way and left us with almost two decades of happy memories. Somehow, the grief was muted and I was spared the worst of it because of these factors.
My next dance with grief, where nothing was spared or muted, came with the loss of my mother.
And what a dance it was.
We were extremely close; video-calling multiple times a day, sharing the boring minutiae of each other’s lives, travelling across oceans to be with each other whenever we could. She had walked beside me through all the triumphs and tragedies of life up until that point. But her loss, the most ripping of tragedies which paled every other hard thing that had come before, she was obviously absent for. And so, I floundered.
But I didn’t come to unpack this trauma here. Another conversation for another day. The above was for context. I write to share a different story.
I have a beautiful friend named Rachel (on a side note, I have two beautiful friends named Rachel. Is it a name that somehow imbues its owner with super-friend qualities?). Anyway, today’s Rach has had so much more experience with loss and grief than is fair or should be allowed. Rach and I have been friends since high school, and she was particularly present for me during the final weeks of my mum’s life and in the aftermath. It was a messy time, that aftermath. And seven years on, much of it is still foggy, which I think is one of those clever things our brain does to keep us safe (though not being a brain expert, it could simply be that I have a terrible memory). But even with the mess and the fog, Rach shared an analogy with me that didn’t just bring comfort at the time, which was hard to come by, but also helped me make sense of the new world I was in – the world in which I was grieving.
Rach likened grief to a backpack that we carry every day. It comes with us to the grocery store, to work, to school pick up and drop off. It waits outside the bathroom door as we shower, and it sits beside our beds while we sleep. Some days the backpack is light, so light that we can forget for moments, here and there throughout the day, that we even have it on. Other days, it’s heavier. On those days, we can feel the weight of the backpack with every movement we make, every step we take. It can be draining, carrying such a heavy backpack on our own all day. Draining and isolating.
Then there are the Really Hard days. In my experience, a Really Hard day can catch me completely off-guard with no prior warning that it was coming. I can be working or parenting or pottering with my plants, and all of a sudden I’m doubled-over, leaking tears at a shocking rate, devastated all over again. Other times, I feel the Really Hard Days coming. I feel the weight of the backpack, indicating I need to stop, to rest, to give it some attention. But I continue on, thinking the weight isn’t actually so bad, or that I don’t have time to stop and attend to it today, or simply waving it all away – future-Ingrid’s problem.
As with any overloaded bag, at some point the weight will simply become too much. The grief will not be put off any longer. One would hope that when this happens, the breakdown occurs somewhere private, quiet, ideally in bed or at least inside a locked car in a dim parking garage.
Alas, no.
My backpack usually explodes in the least opportune places. I’ll list some:
a BodyPump class at my local gym;
during pick-up from my sons’ nursery;
at a panel talk about the future of AI (thankfully I was in the audience, not on the panel);
the 90th birthday celebration for my grandmother-in-law;
the arrivals gate at Sydney airport, and the departure gate at Heathrow airport, and on a myriad of planes during take-off, landing and mid-flight (apologies to all those poor flight attendants, and thanks for the tissues);
a lovely variety of grocery shops, department stores and garden centres.
And many more besides. Some more public, others less so. Some more memorable, again others less so. But one commonality was the complete lack of regard my backpack held for where it decided to explode. No regard at all as to where it exploded, or what event it was marring.
Which leads me to my most recent explosion.
The ‘where’ was fairly innocuous this time, thank goodness for small mercies. It occurred in my home. And my family, quite accustomed to the explosions, was able to be lovingly supportive whilst still continuing with life as usual, which is my deep preference.
The ‘when’ was my 40th birthday. To say that I have been excited about turning 40 is the most understated thing I have ever said. I will be sharing about my Festival of 40 in an upcoming conversation, but suffice to say here, this was not a dreaded or ambivalent birthday for me. I was joyful, excited, and thoroughly content to be leaving my 30s. I had spent the year celebrating – doing not so much a bucket list but a ‘year of yes’ – and expected the actual day to be nothing short of a culmination of the joyous year so far.
I know, I know. Unrealistic expectations, too much pressure, certain disappointment, so on and so forth.
What I hadn’t factored in was that in leaving behind my 30s, I was leaving the last decade in which I had my mum with me. So many big and important things happened to me in my 30s – I turned 30 in Paris with my most adored people around me, I moved overseas for the first time, I had my first child, and then my second child, I built a life and a home I loved in London, I started a business – and all of this was done with the support of a woman who only ever thought I was magnificent. Granted, there were times when she wondered what on earth I was doing (e.g. when I started a business) and other times when she wanted me to do things the easier / normal / acceptable way (e.g. moving back to Australia to have my children, moving back to Australia to raise my children, getting a normal job by which to support those children, etc). But even during those times, I knew she thought I was incredible, and the confidence this gave me was so empowering. I don’t know whether I would have done any of those things without knowing my mum knew I would ultimately be ok.
And now I was going into a whole new decade, one which I hoped (and planned) to be full of big moves and adventures and achievements, as well as all the hard things I couldn’t plan for. But I was doing it without the one someone who unconditionally believed I could do things, all the things.
And so, on the afternoon before my birthday, my backpack exploded. And continued exploding until the day after my birthday. Meaning for two and a half days I was crying inconsolably, unable to hold a complete conversation, weeping through all the beautiful birthday calls, leaking all over the thoughtful and meaningful gifts, puffy-eyed at the fancy dinner my husband had booked for us… I was the literal definition of a mess.
And don’t get me wrong, there are definitely elements of privilege and of shame in sharing this. Seven years on from losing my mum, shouldn’t I be doing better than this? Shouldn’t I be ok by now? Shouldn’t I have the tools to do grief a bit better than I am? And with the traumas happening all over the world, perhaps my focus should be more outward, rather than centred on my own past traumas?
To this, all I can say is, I’m trying. I’m using the tools and the resources I have. I’m doing my best to tend to my backpack, whilst still looking outward to what I can do for others.
And, acknowledging that two seemingly opposing things can be true at the same time, my backpack will keep exploding. No matter what. I can do all the work, all the self-healing and self-compassion and self-care – and yet I will always be grieving the loss of my mum. I will always be feeling her absence in the fullness of my life. I will always miss her gaze on me. As a daughter who was loved, and accepted, and nurtured, I will always miss the mother who gave me those things. For as long as I love her, I will grieve her.
And so, the explosions continue. And so do I.
So sorry for your loss, Beautiful Friend 🫶🥺💖
Oh, I'm with you. Such an eloquent analogy to explain grief and the path we follow once the backpack is with us. Sending hugs