2 in 15

Grief is something that is hard to come to terms with.

Losing someone you love is easily the hardest thing that we as a species will have to deal with. The fact of having to come to terms with the thought that you will never see someone you love again because they are no longer with us, is something that is never going to be easy.

When I lost my uncle 17 months ago, I didn't know how to react. I didn't know how to feel. I didn't know what was okay to feel, whether feeling empty and feeling hopeless was a feeling that was okay to feel. My uncle was the first relative me and my brothers had lost. We didn't know what grief looked like or felt like. We didn't really understand what was happening or going to happen. I had never been to a funeral, I had never seen a coffin except for on TV. In some ways, I had a life that was sheltered by death, and by sheltered I mean I was fortunate enough to never have to see it.

17 months ago, it didn't feel real. It still doesn't, to this day, feel like I lost you, but Christmas is still hard and your birthdays are harder. I still haven't come to terms with you being gone.

But I was getting over the grieving stage. Things were getting easier. I wasn't spending my days thinking about you or my nights awake because sleeping meant thinking of you which made sleeping impossible. I thought I had almost saw a light at the end of the tunnel in the form of moving on from grief in general.

When I saw my brother calling me at 10am on a Friday, in the middle of a lecture, I knew something was wrong. Everything seemed okay that morning. I was going to call you after that lecture and wish you a happy birthday, but the phone call I had on that day was completely different to the one I thought I'd be making. I never expected that I'd be hearing that you had passed away, even when my brother was calling.

It was at that moment that the world stopped. I couldn't speak, I was almost running out of the building with everything stopped around me. I was so absolutely and utterly heartbroken that words were hard to mumble, messages were hard to text.

I got to my house at uni and was thrashing around my room, throwing my clothes around. I was throwing water over my face and hoping this was a dream again. Nothing felt real, I felt like I was completely shutting down. I couldn't have lost someone else I loved so soon after losing my uncle.

I rarely see my dad cry, the only time I think I've seen him cry was when my mum lost her brother. But I don't think he stopped crying since he found you. And I don't blame him either.

My nan raised my dad, an only child, as a single mother. She was his family, and even though my dad has us, he lost the person in his life that had unconditionally loved him since the day he was born, the woman who did everything she physically could to make sure he had the best life he could.

My nan also raised us, essentially. She retired a year after I was born, meaning she looked after us whilst my parents were at work, supporting us as a family. She took us to school, picked us up from school, made us dinner if we wanted, braided my hair into plaits, she came to most of our football matches, she never complained once.

She never complained that she opened her home up to the 5 of us (me, my brothers and my parents). She never complained about all the mess, the late nights from us screaming, the fact she was in her 60s basically raising 3 annoying bratty children. She did everything with a smile, she loved us unconditionally and it was so easy to tell that we were her entire world.

My nan was truly a hero.

Accepting that I will never see her again has been so hard to come to terms with. She lived a street over from us, I saw her nearly everyday and now suddenly I won't ever see her again. We had to clear out her house, we had to walk into an empty house that suddenly felt the opposite of a home and go through all the things that once were hers. We had to find all the artwork we drew for her as children, all the gifts, all the clothes, the paperwork, all the photos of her. We had to pick out flowers, pick out music, pick out words. Something that none of us were ready to do.

There is something about a second loss that makes everything feel harder than it should be. The first time is awful because you don't know what to feel, how to feel and you don't even believe death to be a real thing, in a really weird sense. But the second time, it feels real. You know how you felt last time, you know the hole and the emptiness that you will feel for a long time. You know the process, you know the tears that will come. You know you have to say goodbye and you know that no matter what you do, nothing will make anything okay. You expect sleepless nights, you expect the back and forth journeys, you expect everything and there is still nothing you can do to make it feel better.

In the space of 15 months, I lost two of my heroes, two of the best people I have ever known. Two of the people who I grew up with, and there is nothing in this world I wouldn't do to have one more second with them. In the space of 15 months, I wondered multiple times why life was so cruel, why people just had to suddenly pass away. I spent so many hours thinking about dropping out of university, because it suddenly hit me how I was spending so little time with the people I loved and how so much can change so quickly.

It was grief. It was lonely. It was heartache. It was pure sadness. It was pure worry. It was me suddenly doing awfully again after doing well for so long, with no way of making things better. It consumes you.

Grief itself is awful. Grief is unexpected and it is so hard to work your way through.

And whilst it never truly heals, it eventually starts to get easier.

I know it's been a while now, but I'm still not doing too great. I still have sleepless nights, I still wake up crying because of how much I miss you and I still don't know how to deal with your loss yet.

But I hope I'm doing you proud.