‘How are you doing, Adam?” asks everyone I haven’t seen for what feels like only 10 minutes. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a problem. I care that people care and love those who help me face the grief-based challenges of single parenthood. It’s just that as the weeks roll on since Helen’s death, I’m answering, “I’m OK” and thinking, “I don’t bloody know.”
Three months on, I’m coping and I don’t cry. This is troubling. Much “grief literature” has the bereaved in floods of spontaneous tears, not coping. So I feel guilty, not only because I cope but also because I haven’t cried since the day Helen was diagnosed, which might be taken by others as a sign of a lack of love for Helen. That would be too much to bear.
Recently, I’d had a momentary sense that the pieces of the jigsaw of our new life were known and could now be reassembled with the picture of just Millie, Matt and me on the box. I do mean momentary as that same week, Annie, our nanny, who has been with us for as long as Matt can remember, announced that she was pregnant with her first child.
This is fantastic news and Helen would have been as delighted as I am. But it sends the pieces of the jigsaw flying in all directions. I have a bit of time but I need to look towards coping without Annie at a practical level and, more pertinently, at an emotional level as she is, in 10-year-old Matt’s straight talking, “Not my mum, but the closest I’ve got because I see more of her than any other woman.”
Her news also demonstrated that people sometimes don’t know how to react to bereavement and may unintentionally be outrageously hurtful. The winner so far is Dick (not his real name), who said on hearing Annie’s news: “Taking comfort in the arms of your nanny, Adam? Not original, mate.”
The desire to break the karate oath and kick him through the wall was fleeting. I saw in his eyes the full horror of realisation of what he’d just said and to whom. That I can now tolerate this level of unthinking crassness, indicates a new sensitivity to how ill-equipped many people are to deal with the bereaved. They stay silent, avoid you or simply panic and talk bollocks.
I’ve also become used to being the honorary “mum” at Matt’s primary school. Self-conscious at first, it’s a role I eased into quickly – I’ve worked in an industry skewed towards women and it seemed an easy extension. The high/low point was attending the parents’ evening to hear in detail the sex education Matt would receive.
Held in the early evening, it might have been rebranded the “44 mums and a dad show”. I’d seen the content before when Helen and I had attended the same event for Millie. I’d even learned something from it, not least how compelling it is to have a very attractive female teacher outline the content including playing a video of a man chasing a woman around a bed with a pink feather.
This time, knowing how much I stood out and that I had to leave early, I didn’t want to look like I was running. So with 10 minutes left, I stood up, “Sorry, I have to leave early but I need to go and relieve the nanny.” The laughter echoed as I exited and may even have sparked the subsequent moronic comments from Dick.
But I’m coping. Helped by a very long tail of lovely family, friends, the meaningful and gentle support of both schools and, not least, the structures that Helen had already put in place. The challenge will come when new ones are needed as the children’s world evolves.
But for the next six months, or at least until Annie goes, it looks like the foundations of “new normality” are in place, if far from solid. Mentally, I feel robust with my silent mourning begun long before Helen’s death but I worry that my lack of tears might be storing up something bad.
Adam Golightly is a pseudonym
