The Strangeness of Complicated Grief
On death, dreams, and the birth of new things
This is a post about grief. About dying. About the death of people, dreams, expectations and ideas of self and others. It’s also about hope and tenderness and the birth of new things, and learning that there are so many sides to everything, including my own mind.
Some of you will know that my stepfather died in February of this year. He’s the only father I’ve ever known and he was in my life from when I was just a year old. I’ve been estranged from him, and my mother and step siblings, since 2017, a choice I made for my own wellbeing that was a long time coming. As his passing approached my mother bombarded me with contact attempts in many different ways. My relationship with her is a whole other story.
My stepfather was an angry and violent and bitter man. He hit me with his fists, with hardback books, with cruel and vicious words. He came to my bedroom at night and molested me for several years when I was a teenager - although I didn’t remember this had happened until I was forty-four years old. He beat his son regularly with a leather belt that had a big silver buckle, and he fought violently with my mother all the time. The last time I saw him in 2016, he heckled me at an author event I’d been booked for when my debut novel published. Then he stole one of the copies I had for sale and put it in my mother’s bag.
I thought I wasn’t grieving for him. I thought all the bad had outweighed any good and I was glad he was gone. And, in a way, that is true.
But last week I cried for him for the first time since learning of his death four months ago. I was confused by these tears. How could I feel sad for his passing when he did so many awful things? When his actions had such a profound negative impact on who I became and what I believed about myself.
Because nobody is ever just one thing. He was also a funny and generous and silly man. He took me swimming every weekend when I was a little girl. He taught me to ride my bike without stabilisers on our front lawn. He made me laugh. When I grew up and left home, he helped me out many times with money, DIY projects, and lifts to various places. Never with advice, or words of encouragement and love. I know now that was beyond him.
I feel a strange tenderness towards him now though. I don’t know why, or where that has come from. Grief is a strange, shapeshifting thing. A lesson I’ve learned well in the past nine years as this bereavement is the seventeenth in that time. But he was damaged by his past, as I have been damaged by mine, as we all are in some way. That doesn’t excuse what he did but I have forgiven him. I had even before he died. My feelings for him, and all of my family, have been indifference for a long while now. All of it seems like something that happened to someone else. Because I am different now. I’ve healed much of the damage done to me. I’m still healing other layers, and have come to understand I probably always will be. So when the tears came, I just let the grief be. I didn’t try too hard to understand it, I didn’t fight it, I just let it be.
Because at the same time as this has been happening, my life has been in a state of upheaval. My husband and I have had nowhere to live for the past three months and have to keep moving out of our temporary accommodation when the owners come here. We’re on the move again at the end of next week for two and a half weeks. Hotels, Airbnbs, family and friends for a few nights here and there. The costs are eye-watering and my husband hasn’t been able to work because of the moving around. The only income we have is from my self-employed teaching and my two Substacks, as all my freelance journalism has completely dried up over the past six months. It’s a precarious time.
We’ve been looking into so many options to try and find a longterm home we can afford and in doing so, I’ve had to let go of the expectations that lived on in my heart that, somehow, we would find a way to stay in the UK, or return to Ireland. We can’t. It’s beyond our means. I am grieving the death of this dream too. While we are at the home in Scotland we can live in for eight months from August, we’re going to have to try and find a longterm solution elsewhere.
But at the same time as these dreams and old ways of feeling about the past, and my hopes for the future, are dying, new ideas, new dreams, and new ways of being are springing into life. I’m learning Reiki healing, which on reading my course book in preparation for the live training days I’ve discovered involves being a channel for the energy, and channeling is what I already do with the characters that come to me when I write fiction. So it feels very aligned and explains why I felt drawn to it. I’ve completely shifted my teaching focus so that all of my courses are now through The Mindful Writer, and I’ve gained deep new insights into myself.
My mind is wandering to the different places, and different ways, I can live if I can embrace the move from my homeland instead of resisting it. My Irish birth certificate has been issued and my passport will be here within a couple of months now, so I’m an EU citizen again, and by extension so is my husband, which reopens many doors for us to live somewhere we can afford. My mind is wandering to places with lots of sunshine near the sea.
I keep reading this quote from Pema Chödrön to remind myself that in letting things die, I make room for a new life.
And I realise that I have done it many times before. I can do it again. I am doing it again. And it feels scary, and exciting, and sad, and joyful. I am not completely together, but I also haven’t completely fallen apart. I believe that kind of balance is what our human lives are like. That in-between space where we can accept we don’t know, we don’t have control, and we can just allow that to be.
What about you? What are you letting go of to make space for something new?
With love,
Write with me
None of my courses are about following formulas or writing to market trends. They're about discovering the stories that live in your heart and bones, and learning to pour words onto the page without fear. They’ve all been written with love. 💙
If you love the art of flash fiction...
The Mindful Flash Fiction Course teaches you to craft complex characters and complete worlds in just a few hundred words, creating stories that shimmer with meaning and impact.
If you're ready to write with deeper purpose...
Compassionate Storytelling shows you how to create fiction and memoir that promotes healing, understanding, and positive change in our world.
If you want to transform your entire writing practice...
A Year of Mindful Writing offers twelve months of guided exploration to help you develop a sustainable, joyful writing practice that nourishes both your craft and your soul.
If you want deep, committed and personalised guidance…
The Mindful Mentoring Program is six months of one-to-one work combining craft development with mindfulness practices to help you complete a draft of a novel or memoir and fill your writing practice with meaning and joy.
In case you missed it
Here are the posts I’ve shared so far this month…
grief doesn’t come to be understood. it comes to clear space.
what you wrote here holds both the blade and the balm.
the death of the dream is the cost of becoming someone new.
There was so much richness in this piece on grief, Amanda. I could especially relate to "My feelings for him, and all of my family, have been indifference for a long while now. All of it seems like something that happened to someone else. Because I am different now. I’ve healed much of the damage done to me. I’m still healing other layers, and have come to understand I probably always will be." This is such an accurate description, in my experience, of the fruit of a long healing journey.
I wish you and your husband the best with finding the perfect spot to lay down roots.