I started writing this (in italics below) on Thursday evening. To try and create a measure (I know. Sorry. I am so anti-measuring anything but I couldn’t stand this drifting, shifting, murky, sometimes tedious, sometimes stifling, seemingly pointless (in productive terms), miserable grief existence that was blanketing me). I gathered spontaneously offered timelines from people who had gone through unexpected death (either recently or decades ago) trying to get some idea of how long these feelings would continue, develop and change.

Seven weeks today. Here’s where I’m at with ‘grief’:

• I cry less.
• The feeling that my brain is constrained in a sieve-like, fogging vice device remains.
• I’m dog tired all the time.
• I can almost cheerfully spend chunks of time with family and friends. 
• After any time of ‘cheer’, I have crushing feelings of deep sadness (of varying length) that are hard to deal with. 
• I get moments of breathtaking almost panic attack type induced despair sparked by anything and seemingly nothing. 
• I no longer feel the urge to tell everyone I pass on the street what’s happened. 
• I dread seeing people who may not know. Like LB’s old nursery school teacher outside the bank today. Does she know or doesn’t she? Dread if she does, dread if she doesn’t.
• I constantly re-live what happened and rage at how and why? 
• I miss LB. So much it hurts.  

This reflection was derailed with the latest email from our solicitor. My ‘current’  grief state’ crushed.

The extremes to which we are being pushed are remarkable. Given everything that’s happened. And what is going to happen in the months (years?) ahead. How this unimaginable happening is going to be explained, accounted for. It’s more than enough to catapult any parent (sibling, family, friend) into an unspeakably dark space.

I get messages from people I know and don’t know, about being strong. About being able to articulate this atrocious experience objectively. About the importance of doing so for dudes like LB. Yep. On it. I/we agree. Completely.

But the dark space is becoming darker the more we find out. It’s a toughie.

So. After the latest ‘news’, I’m going to put it out there and say that I hope there are people in the health and social care world with influence/power (humanity and decency) who are prepared to say “Enough is enough”. People who wont breeze over/ignore or sideline the mountain of evidence highlighting the premature deaths of learning disabled people. It has got to stop. Things have got to change.

Oh, sorry. Silly me. I got carried away there for a minute. I’d almost fallen back into the world of sunshine, support and fluffy dogs. Written pretty much a year to the day LB died.

Current grief state? Complete and absolute despair.