‘Grief is like an ocean. It is sometimes calm and nostalgic. It reflects the sky and all the beauty around it. In a strange way, it’s comforting. But other times it is overwhelming and comes in waves, crashing and threatening to drown the heart with sorrow and memories and ‘what ifs’. It ebbs and flows with it’s own tide and we can’t change it’s course, no matter how we try. We have to allow ourselves to be carried with it. And we learn to swim……Livonne’

Yesterday was 29 years since my beautiful daughter Aimee left this earth and took with her a large chunk of my heart. I had felt grief before that day, of course. My beloved grandmother’s passing had broken my 15 year old heart. And losing my dad had rocked my world, especially watching Mum deal with her grief. But nothing could ever have prepared me for the loss of a child.

To quote W H Auden, while changing the gender, ‘She was my north, my south, my east and west, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song. I thought that love would last forever. I was wrong.‘ But I wasn’t wrong.

Love does last forever, even though we can’t touch a loved ones face, we love them. We will never hear their laughter and still we love them. We long to feel their arms around us and know it’s impossible but we love them. We are angry with them for leaving us, but only because we love them. It doesn’t die. It lasts forever until we take our last breath and, I believe, beyond then. Losing a child made me understand the phrase, love is eternal.

I used to think grief had an expiry date. That you grieved for a period of time and then you forgot and moved on. What a naïve thought. I’ve been told the same garbage countless times in the last 29 years. You need to move on. You need to snap out of it. You need to put it behind you. You need to stop dwelling on it. Trust me, these things are impossible to do.

All you can do is learn to swim. Not straight away. It’s a gradual process. First you keep going under. You feel like your lungs will explode while trying to find a way to catch your breath. You may even learn to float for a while but then a sudden wave of grief will crash over you and you go under again. Eventually you learn to tread water. You may even look calm on the outside but underneath you are paddling like mad, trying to stay afloat. And eventually you learn to swim. And still, the occasional wave of grief will drag you back under.

I often remember the first time I genuinely laughed after losing Aimee. The happiness immediately left my face and I felt so ashamed when I realised what I was doing. How could I possibly smile again, let alone laugh? The guilt was horrendous. I felt like the worst person on earth. But eventually, it happened again and I had to give myself permission to smile again, to laugh again, to love again. It didn’t mean I loved her any less. That is impossible. It just meant I was learning to swim through the ocean of grief that I would forever live in.

Yesterday when I first woke up, I felt the same old pain. I knew immediately what day it was. My mind will never allow me to forget, nor do I want it to. I lay in bed and allowed myself to just float in the pain for a while. Some may call it wallowing but they are the ones who will never understand unless they go through it. I allowed myself to feel the pain, to float in it, to respect it, but most importantly, to remember her. Then I started swimming.

I got up and wrote a blog about Bridgerton. You might think today’s blog would have been more appropriate but I needed to step outside myself for a little while, so Bridgerton it was. I got some beautiful phone calls from people I adore. One friend showed me a photo of the flowers she had just placed on Aimee’s grave as I’m in another state and can’t visit it.

I had a few friends call in with some lovely gifts and we had some deep and wonderful talks. I laughed, I cried, I remembered. But most importantly, I swam. It’s all I know how to do. When Aimee died, my sons were 8 and 6 so I had no choice but to keep going. I learned to swim a lot quicker than I wanted to but they needed to know they still had me. Their little lives had fallen down too. I couldn’t afford to drown.

If you know someone going through the pain of grief, just be there for them. You can’t swim for them, but you can help them hold their heads above water while they catch their breath. Let them speak, let them cry, let them rant if they need to. You will feel helpless and think you’re not helping, but chances are, you definitely are. Just remember to support yourself too. You can’t help someone else without being able to breathe yourself.

And here I am, 29 years later. I laugh a lot. I love my life. I am generally a very positive person. I swim the ocean of grief with more strength than I ever thought I could. But occasionally, it all gets too much and I still need to just float to get my breath back. And when the waves start to crash over me, I tread water for a bit and then I swim and I swim and I swim.

Happy swimming…Livvy xxx