The only thing that still surprises me about grief is how it is different each and every time. I don’t know if that’s obvious or surprising, actually – and I’m not in a place to be able to tell.

My brother Al died last November, and the grief I am experiencing this time around feels dissimilar to the other losses I have worked through. (Both parents, three grandparents, and more than a few friends as well.)

Many of you reading this will have gone through the death of someone close. Some of you reading this will have never been to a funeral or sat at the bedside of someone dying. At some point though, everyone reading this is going to love someone who dies. And you’ll grieve.

Some aspects of grieving remain relatively consistent. You miss the person who’s gone. Remember the good times (and the bad). Get angry, occasionally, because they’ve left you behind. Go to pick up the phone and call them before remembering they’re not around. Get extra-sad around their birthday, their deathday, and other important anniversaries.

I feel all this for my brother, as I still feel it for my mum (dead 13 years) and my dad (dead 16). While it has indeed become somewhat paler over time, it’s not something I ever forget or move past. It’s kept me company on my journey through life, and altered the original trajectory considerably. It’s also made me stronger.

My grief for Al though, is somewhat different. He was ill for a good six years before he died – although when he did, it was relatively unexpected. I’d anticipated either going to wake him up one morning and finding he’d gone in his sleep (reasonably unlikely), or alternatively that it would be a steep decline over a number of months. Instead it was yet another ambulance ride to the hospital – nothing unusual – only to find that it was something unfixable and this was the end game. He went into a coma that night, and died two days later at the hospice. I’d think, “It wasn’t enough time” – yet we’d had plenty.

I miss Al. But I don’t miss him the way I thought I would. He lived with my husband and me for five years, and in that time barely a day went past when I didn’t spend part of it with him, watching the awful afternoon television shows with him, taking him to social days at the hospice, or driving him to various medical appointments. He’d come into the house to say hi in the morning; I’d go out to the sleepout to say hi after work; we’d go to the supermarket together.

And yet.

I don’t miss him as I thought I would. Moving house in the New Year helped – a fresh suburb and fresh environment. A lot of my day will go past where I don’t think of him at all (and when I do, I wonder why I didn’t earlier). But when I do things we used to do together – visit Big Gay Out; laugh at old South Park episodes; read the latest express – then I do. When I have a new lover and want to talk to someone about them, I miss him. When I just want to reminisce about childhood years, especially, I miss him. No one else is left who shares that background with me.

I miss Al for who he was. But I am glad he’s gone – it was a long hard road for him, for me, and for my husband. He’s not in pain, and we’re starting to move on.

So I grieve in a different way. And love that we had him for as long as we did.

| Curvaceous Dee
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