when big dies in and just like that, carrie asks miranda - with calm desperation - “what do i do now?”. it’s a simple line, a somewhat expected reaction to death, but one that really stuck with me. for its poignancy. for its un-familiarity.
a couple weeks after my brother james’ death in the summer of 2015, i returned to london and to my job at the zoo gift shop, picking up as many hours as possible, selling overpriced tiger plushies and fruit pastilles lollies to whining children, trying to make back the money i lost by not working during the socially acceptable grieving process (gotta love a zero hours contract).
on the shop floor, a colleague asked where i’d been. i said my brother passed away. she started crying. “it’s okay” - i said - reassuring her.
it’s a reaction that i think lots of grieving people provide. trying to appease someone else’s emotions. trying to come across normal: a lie we tell others to maintain tranquillity. “it’s okay”, analgesic to panic.
except, in that moment, i, strangely, actually was okay.
22, heterosexual, a boy, avoiding my emotions was second nature.
“what do i do now?”
move on.
in the years that followed, james’ death has felt hard to grasp, omnipresent, overbearing, pestilent, a tragedy, so incredibly painful. but, also, okay.
that coexistence is natural, necessary for us to keep on functioning. but okay-ness has always sat uncomfortably, paired with a tinge of guilt, at the realisation that i was okay because, in some ways, and this feels brutal to write, i wasn’t missing him.
at the time of his death, james and i had been living in different countries for a couple of years. we’d kiki over text and cherished our moments together, but our actual interactions were not that regular. this made the transition from my life with him, to my life without him, minimal. away from the rest of my grieving family, my new normal was not all that new.
missing him was not a key part of my grieving experience - and yet something clearly was missing.
in 1996, dr lois tonkin debunked the psychological notion that grief decreases over time, offering instead the theory above, whereby the grief doesn’t alter, we just grow around it. it’s a more compassionate approach to bereavement, one that acknowledges the magnitude of the loss never goes away. but it’s a theory that still feels dissatisfying - maybe all psychological theories are.
ultimately, the association of grief with stagnancy feels inaccurate. my grief, maybe due to no longer being 22, maybe due to my rejection of heterosexuality and masculinity, maybe due to my coping mechanisms gradually falling apart, feels more intensified today. what felt avoidable to think about back then, follows me everywhere now.
a part of that is guilt: for not being around enough during his last years, for not being more open (more myself?) when he was alive, for not being a better sibling. and guilt comes with regret, for all that could have been instead.
but really, what i most grieve, is not growing old together.
i grieve the fact i had an older gay brother, but we’ll never get to do silly gay shit together. that he’ll never meet/love/berate my queer partners. that we’ll never go on a fab holiday, to seoul or st. tropez, just us. that we won’t be there for each other getting married, divorced, or not. that he won’t be able to give me terrific (and/or terrible) advice. that i’ll never get to ask him if i grew to be the person he envisioned i’d be. i grieve he’ll never meet all the people i’m yet to become, knowing full well whoever i will be will only be because of his death.
the realisation, over time, that we don’t have a future together, has me asking myself - with calm desperation:
“what do i do now?”
cry
scream
have a cheese toastie
journal
remember when?
dance
talk to him
cry
go for a night walk
call in sick
call your mum
call a friend
catch a random train
practice gratitude
pray
reject the regret
cry
swim
wear your favourite outfit
watch lilo & stitch
hug a friend
cry
don’t move on.