Three Steps To Surviving Grief

benjamin franklin famously said

in this world nothing can be said to be

certain except death

and taxes well i’m not an accountant but

i have paid the cost of experiencing

profound grief

having watched my brother go from the

prime of his life to holding his hand on

his deathbed

in our lifetime every single one of us

will experience the grief

heartbreak and loss that comes with

losing someone we love

every single one of us

that loss may be of your mum your dad

your grandparent

your friend your partner your child

no one loss is more important than the

others i’ve lost count how many times

people have said to me

i only lost my insert family member here

i can’t imagine losing my brother

my pain is not worse than your pain and

it’s important to remember that grief is

relative

everyone grieves differently and each

loss is as unique as the person who has

left us

grief is defined by the individual not

society

whatever you’re lost grief can be

devastating it can turn your life upside

down and inside out

it can eat away at you until there’s

nothing left until you feel like there’s

no way you can survive

i know because i’ve been there in the

days weeks and months before and after i

held my brother’s hand on his deathbed

but there is hope i’m going to be

sharing with you how grief changed my

life and i would change my life in a

profoundly positive way

and i’m going to be sharing with you the

many many mistakes i made along the way

to unearthing my three steps to

surviving grief

the three steps to surviving grief have

been crafted from my own personal

journey with loss

molded by the negative avoidance i

experienced and how this impacted both

myself

and those around me and born from the

positive purpose i’ve found in

channeling my grief into something that

benefits others

for those directly affected by grief my

hope is that you’ll have a better

understanding

that the negative outcomes of grief do

not have to define you

but they can help shape you in a

positive way

for those supporting someone through

grief my hope is that you’ll have a

better understanding of how to help the

person you care for

through the hardest time of their life

this is my brother robin taken at

christmas 2010

rob didn’t smoke barely drank always ate

healthily and exercised daily

he was 23 and in the prime of his life

three weeks after this photo was taken

my brother was diagnosed with a stage

four

mediastinal germ cell tumor now unless

you’ve got a medical degree have been

directly affected by this rare form of

cancer

will be forgiven for asking what the

hell is a stage four mediastinal germ

cell tumor

my brother had a tumor the size of a

grapefruit in between his heart and his

lungs

a rare form of testicular cancer that

was at the last stage of diagnosis

rob had a poor prognosis and a slim

chance of survival

as my brother was whisked away to london

to be treated by the uk’s leading

specialist

being put through several rounds of

gruelling chemotherapy that stripped his

hair

his muscle and his dignity as my mum and

dad tried their hardest to juggle

hospital with

real life and as everyone around me

tried to get their heads around this

impossible situation

i’d love to say that i was a rock an

anchor

a calm sea of helpfulness and

practicality

i’d love to say that i’d be lying

in reality i fell into a downward spiral

of drinking far too much

acting irresponsibly and not caring

about my actions or the implications of

them

i fell into what i now call negative

avoidance

avoiding my feelings avoiding dealing

with reality

and avoiding facing the impact of my

actions

on the 27th of october i was standing in

my local co-op when i received a call

from my mum

she my dad and my brother had been at

the hospital to discuss options

following months of treatment

secondary leukemia and an unsuccessful

bone marrow transplant

she simply asked are you far away

can you come home now but her voice was

breaking

it was in that moment while standing in

the juice aisle of my local co-op

that i knew my brother was dying

all hope was lost

the final weeks of my brother’s life

were split between spending as much time

as possible with my family and as

ashamed as i am to say it

doubling down on my efforts to avoid

avoid avoid

one morning in the final week of my

brother’s life at a time when i knew my

brother only had a matter of days left

on this earth

i found myself drunk in the back of my

mum’s car with my brother in the front

seat traveling to the hospice

imagine this for a second my brother was

frail

tired and literally dying and i had to

borrow his cardboard sick bucket

and asked my mum to pull over so i could

throw up in the back of our local test

codes

my brother passed away on december 10

2011

aged just 24. i held his hand to the

very end

from a drunken bereaved 22 year old to

nearly a decade later

standing here talking openly and

honestly about my experience

it’d be easy to look back at how far

i’ve come with rose tinted glasses

but that wouldn’t be doing justice to

the journey that it took to get me here

they say time is a great healer i say

[ __ ] it took more than time to get

me here it took a hell of a lot of

patience

love and support and i want to share

with you the three steps it took to turn

my negative avoidance

into positive purpose my three steps

for surviving grief step one

self-awareness understanding the impact

negative avoidance is having on your

life

and the lives of the people around you

now it should be noted that the self in

this step

is actually a misnomer no one who is

negatively avoiding their grief should

be expected to come to this conclusion

themselves

what is important is the clarifying

moment in the mind

often originating from an outside source

an intervention from friends and family

experiencing an all-time low or being

given given an ultimatum by a loved one

my moment of self-awareness came

following yet another drunken night of

avoidance

during an argument with my then

girlfriend now wife i proclaimed

i guess this is me now thankfully she

was not happy with this outcome

and swiftly replied go and get help or

i’ll leave you

in that moment i finally realized the

impact i was having on the people i

cared about most

that my grief was getting in the way of

my future and that i would lose that

future if i didn’t start to make changes

step two self-reflection having the

opportunity to talk about your grief

to address it acknowledge it and

understand it

and allowing yourself to grieve in a

healthy way

for many this outlet could be as simple

as talking to a friend

a colleague a loved one just having a

safe space

is enough for many more professional

help is needed to allow them to step

back

and reflect on what has happened to them

the impact of their actions

and how to change their behaviors and

coping mechanisms moving forwards

my self-reflection came in the form of

grief counseling

the first session was spent crying for

60 minutes

the next it was 50 then 40 and so on and

so on

by the last session we were just talking

and my counselor said

i don’t think you need any more sessions

i’m always here if you need me but

for now i’m going to sign you off i

haven’t been back since but me and my

wife have spent

years learning triggers picking up on

warning signs

and taking the time to self-reflect in a

healthy way when needed

rob’s birthday christmas time the

milestones that come round

every damn year step three

self-fulfillment accepting your new

normal and acknowledging the positive

purpose in your life

we don’t get over grief it is an illness

that we can cure

it’s an affliction that we learn to live

with and the power that we hold over

grief is the ability to learn to live

again

this can be as simple as getting out of

bed as it can be as complex

as running as a marathon for someone who

has lost a loved one

the powerful act of acknowledging the

positives no matter how small

is the very essence of positive purpose

my self-fulfillment has come in the form

of founding a charity a charity that

aims to prevent another family going

through what we did

to raise awareness reduce embarrassment

and save lives

this has been my catharsis my focus my

positive purpose

as with grief these steps are relative

to the individual not everyone drinks

themselves into oblivion to avoid their

reality

not everyone finds grief counselling

enough to support them

and not everyone sets up a charity to

fulfill themselves

and that’s okay my hope from this talk

isn’t to tell you how to grieve

my only hope from this talk is that you

don’t have to go through what i did

to make the same mistakes i did to feel

the shame

the guilt the pain of knowing that you

made a bad situation worse

or that you hurt the people you love

during the hardest time of their lives

and that you can never go back and

change the past

i hope that you learn from my mistakes i

hope that you heed my lessons and i hope

that you do

better for yourself and those around you

because you can change your future i’ll

leave you with this

it’s been said that grief is the price

we pay for love

it’s a debt that we will continue to pay

for the rest of our lives

but it need not be a crippling debt an

unmanageable debt

we need not live our life in arrears if

we can turn our negative avoidance into

positive purpose

we can manage that debt we can pay when

the bill is due and we can stop that

debt from passing to the next generation

thank you