Just want to say, this is purely to get something off my chest, hopefully allowing me to move forward.
First of all I’m 26, and no stranger to grief as I lost my grandparents in my teens, but this grief has hit me harder than I expected.
In March this year, one of my closest friends tragically passed away as he was in a motorbike accident. I vividly remember getting the call from my friend telling me that he had died. I went in to absolute shock. I messaged her and said are you on about “first name, surname”. Deep down I knew who she meant but I was in denial. I then got in my car and went to a local shop (had some errands to do) but as soon as she replied yes, I instantly drove home. I sobbed and sobbed, every time I stopped, I would instantly cry again. I ended up crying to sleep and woke up to a message in our friend group chat. My friend had asked me if it was true, and I had to then break it to the rest of the group that the rumours were true. My family did everything to support me over the next couple days. Some close friends and his family met up to lay flowers at the scene of the accident the following Wednesday and it still didn’t feel real. I still to this day try and avoid driving past the place.
The next big challenge was seeing him in the chapel of rest. Luckily his injuries were not significant to his appearance. I remember standing in the room thinking “he’ll move in a minute and say this was all a joke”. I knew when I left that room, it was no joke.
Due to the incident requiring a formal police investigation, the funeral wasn’t scheduled until the beginning of May. Those 5/6 weeks, I was completely on autopilot. I would wake up, go to work, come home sleep. On the day of his funeral, it was so warming to see how many people came to celebrate his life but deep down, I didn’t want to celebrate. My heart shattered that day. I’m very lucky his mum allowed me to write something for his tribute. She also allowed me to write a letter which would be with him in his coffin.
Since then, as a friendship group, we’ve celebrated weddings, friends getting engaged etc and I still feel it is wrong to be celebrating these occasions without him. When I know he’d be saying “stop being so soft. I’m still here celebrating with you”.
I suppose deep down, I feel guilty for all the times I declined having a drink with him because I was skint or I was too tired from work. I feel guilty that we are allowed to live our lives when his was taken away from him. There’s been times when I just want to call him up and tell him the gossip but knowing that I can’t breaks me. He really lifted me up when I was breaking and I lifted him up when he was breaking. We were never romantically involved but I truly believe he was my soulmate. Our friendship group is made up of girls and boys, all with different personalities and different closeness to different people. And I know me and my friend were the closest so I don’t feel my friends understand how difficult I’ve fount this. One of them recently said “you’ve been so strong, you’ve held this whole group together” and as much as I agree with him, I don’t feel like I’m that strong in the comfort of my own home.
Fast forward to today, and I feel like I’m stuck in a rut. I barely see my friends at the moment, I still live with my parents so I can speak to them for support. But ultimately I don’t want to, I want to speak to my friend but I can’t. I know I will break this cycle and this is normal for grief but I just feel so heavy and fed up at the moment and I hope writing this all down helps me clear my thoughts and allow me to move forward.
I’ve been reading a book recently called “A thousand broken pieces” by Tillie Cole which follows a group of young adults dealing with grief. Usually I can read a book within a week or two, but this has taken me nearly two months to read. Each time I read it, I’m relating to the characters and when they are with coping with grief. The last chapter was acceptance. I think me writing this has allowed me the acceptance to know that he isn’t coming back, which is okay.
Reflecting on what I’ve wrote above, 4 months isn’t a lot of time to grieve for countless years of friendship with somebody. And I know what I’m feeling now, is okay and there is nothing wrong with it.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading.