After the rain, there is a moment of calm and stillness. The clenched dry earth lets out a sigh. Water beads on the leaves and soaks into the soil, then finds its way down the drains to rivers and oceans. Tiny pools of water collect on dandelion heads. Grass glistens. Birds emerge and land on branches and garden fences, feathers puffed and preening, preparing to feast on the insects flushed from their burrows. Petrichor wafts from the steaming roads and concrete walkways. People tentatively step from under doorways, hands outstretched to confirm the rain has stopped as if their eyes had deceived them.
There is little you can do when it rains. Retreat, stay dry and accept the inevitable. Sometimes, you get caught in a downpour unprepared with no protection against the elements. Then there are rare occasions when embracing rainfall, feeling it on your skin like a sort of ritual cleansing, a baptism.
Grief is like rain. It can catch you unaware and unprepared. In the early hours and days that follow the death of a loved one, there is a sort of predictable rhythm to the grief, a deluge, unyielding in its force. The only reprieve is in sleep and the milliseconds of amnesia. You wake to what feels like a "normal" day before you remember death and return to the gnawing pain. There are other times, wide awake and entirely numb, uncoupled from your body, you float into abstraction while you wait for the kettle to boil, only to come hurtling back to reality when the spell is broken by the sound of the crescendo of bubbling water.
Despite the notion that grief contracts and diminishes over time, for me, the opposite is true. Like the rain, it seeps into the cracks of your life, permeates your imagination, and pours into the very fibre of your being. The patter of pain changes, however. From an intense torrent to a slow and steady drip. You can cope with a drip. You can put a bucket underneath a drip and get on with your life, walking around it when needed. Eventually, the bucket fills and overflows. I have learned this the hard way. There are certain times of the year when I know grief will be more present. Years of being caught unprepared have taught me that there are signs to look out for. You learn to read the rain clouds and when to anticipate a storm.
When grief is not overtly present, it lies dormant under the layers of everyday life, easy to forget. But, when we're stressed and tired, it seizes the opportunity to reappear. There are some strange and unexpected things I’ve come to realise about grief. I know it might appear when I feel run down when my defences are weakened. What I find less predictable is that joy and beauty can bring grief to the surface. Little incidental things, seemingly insignificant, like nature walks or a great film. Those seemingly innocuous things can suddenly evoke a strange confluence of emotions, a dual state of joy and sadness. Then there are the more significant life moments where a loved one's absence is so apparent as to almost eclipse the moment itself.
Our bodies feel grief when our minds are not aware of it. It is not simply a cognitive experience. Heartache is real. Feeling weak in the knees and states of physical pain are not uncommon reactions to loss. Numbness too, the complete absence of felt experience, is quite a reasonable protective mechanism. When I struggle to grapple with the sense of inner disharmony, I try to think myself out of it and rationalise the disquiet. It’s often a physical sensation, a knot in my stomach or a headache that will force me to be still. Without distraction, I can sometimes notice that the tension is actually grief in one of its many guises. Nothing a good cry can't dislodge, albeit momentarily.
Eight years on, nearly nine since my Dad died, followed shortly by the death of my Grandmother, and more recently, more family members and close family friends. I know that grief moves and changes, like water. It changes form. While I have been removed, physically, from the impact of those more recent deaths, I know that like melting ice and rising tides, or the deluge of rain grief is inescapable. It will make itself known one way or the other, and whether you recognise it as grief or not, you will experience it.
The La Nina rains of 2021 on the East Coast of Australia, which followed the fires of 2020, followed by pandemic lockdowns provided the perfect storm for many people to experience an overwhelming sense of grief. The frightening prospect of a changed landscape and the loss of safety and certainty was a ferocious mix. I've never heard the word "unprecedented", used so much. We were entirely unprepared for any of it. The collective grief and our continued reckoning with a changed and changing world reminded me that grief is never a solitary experience.
In a conversation with someone over recent days, they reflected on the Middle East, confused by the global outrage, “so much needs to be addressed at home”. I tried to express my perspective, albeit inarticulately. The outrage people feel is a collective expression of grief and compassion. We can see another person's grief and pain and want to prevent that suffering, despite borders and cultural differences. While we can’t stop the inevitability of ‘everyday’ death, we can express our horror at terror and injustice. I wonder if the head in the sand, ears covered eyes closed approach to global suffering is the inability to accept our own pain and suffering? I don’t know. I do know that I am grateful for the outpouring of heartfelt compassion, surely that is what it means to be human? To recognise and feel the suffering of others as we do in ourselves.
In 2018 my iPhone prompted a ‘memory’ of my cherub-like niece as a smiley babe. I looked at her through my phone and suddenly felt the absence of her Grandad, my Dad. It was one of the most profoundly jarring moments of mixed emotion, immense sadness and gratitude, all at once. I’m not sure how the experience of grief will shift and change as time goes on. I believe it will continue to morph in ways that can't be known or controlled. I also know for sure I will experience another downpour, another deluge in the wake of death, change and uncertain times ahead. It is inevitable.
After loss, life is bittersweet. The sadness is all-encompassing, expansive and unavoidable. And yet, the sweeter moments in life somehow feel a little sweeter. Not in a saccharine or sappy way. The lens through which I see the world now is through a greater sense of immediacy and gratitude, knowledge of the finite, fleeting nature of life. There is growth after rain.
Natures notes is proudly written on and inspired by Dharawal Country. I recognise the Dharawal & Wodi Wodi custodians and ancestors who have an enduring connection to land, water and skies.
Always Was and Always Will be Aboriginal Land.
Thanks for this really moving piece. The line about "little incidental things, seemingly insignificant, like nature walks or a great film" really chimed with me. I wonder if it's something about beauty and things feeling 'as they should' that triggers something.
This is so beautiful, Anna. Seeing grief as rain makes so much sense, and I love when you say that the body feels grief even when we're not cognitively aware of it.