Unfillable holes

I try not to look too far back. I have a strong faith that what happens happens and the only next step is to do just that, try to take the next step no matter how hard, faltering painful it may be. But if I do contemplate what was the most difficult of my post SAH moments it would undoubtedly be my grief for my loss of self.

What do I mean by that? In the months and years after my SAH retired previous capacities and my shunt slowed existing performance I have had to get to know this version of myself and familiarise what is possible in this stage of my life. Better know my limits so to speak. My wrestling with that challenge revealed what I was mourning most was the opportunity of doing things how I used to do them, of being how I used to be. I missed me. And it was raw, it still can be at times and it was grief.  An emotion we all experience at times throughout our lives and none are exempt. But equally time has revealed a new familiarity of possibility and capability and attitude , so my loss whilst still with me , is becoming less painful with each passing day. Brain injury is a loss to function that you learn to live with, you don’t get better from it, but in time hopefully you do adjust and adapt and find new ways of living and maybe learn to like , even love that new way. living with grief is just the same. A permanent injury to self.

My wonderful and inspiring mum died in July and is now much missed by me and so many after so bravely and cheerily facing her own health challenges and I am plunged once more into the world of tears and loss. What Exactly do I miss? I miss Everything about her and the opportunity to do things as we used to just as I missed myself post SAH. But whilst I am at the beginning of my acceptance and adjustment to her no longer being physically around I already realise and acknowledge the possibility of life without her. I can still talk to her, draw on her past wisdoms and comforts which helps me but even that doesn’t compensate when actually all I really want is a hug from her and to hug her back. 

What makes days easier is small moments of kindness, acts of caring and noticing others and an attempt to be considerate even when you are going through hardship can make you feel better. This was never better shown to me recently by the beautiful and caring act of a stranger who saw how distressed I was as I left the hospital bed of my mum after she had left us and who just beckoned me to her, just took me in her arms and held me. She was 93, frail and I think dying herself but she offered me such kindness, maybe because in the previous days I had helped her in a tiny way with plumping pillows, straightened bed sheets and pouring fresh drink but probably because she had lived long enough to know that when it comes down to it kindness and love is the last thing you know. 

All loss brings grief. Loss of relationship , loss of promise, loss of hope but equally all these return in some measure, just different and yet love I know  from experience remains even when all feels lost and over. Love is endless. 

Grief of each kind comes and goes, like a wave crashing in and then rolling back, each time a little different in strength but even on the calmest of days the waves are still there, you know they are and one can rise up from nothing. Grief is a relentless and constant companion. 

I have a hole in my head, multiple in fact, I don’t particularly like them but they are part of who I am , I know feel and see them everyday even though they are invisble to others . They are a a scar and testament to my adjusting and carrying on but they’ll never repair or fill and now I have a mum shaped hole in my heart. Equally Unseen but to be lived with and acknowledged, saluted in fact . My mum meant so much she has left me with another hole that can never close but then I smile at her gifts to me. 

I can live with that. I’ll just have to miss and remember her well. 

“It is what it is.”

We go forward until we can go forward no more. 

Anniversary Post: Stocktaking

“Stock-taking or "inventory checking" is the physical verification of the quantities and condition of items ”

 So I’ve notched up six years since that crazy day when  ‘all change please’ was called on my brain and as is now my customary practice I use the day and date to perform a bit of a stocktake for myself and mark what’s new and changed this year. 

I can’t help it as it probably stems back to my shop days when I was known as a bit of a stock taking queen and so was asked to support most of the different departments complete their annual stocktake. On Sunday Mornings a small band of us would file into a silent store absent of any shoppers and just get on with it. Back then I loved the preparation, the count, the assessment of what was missing the investigation and then putting in a solution and I rather think I’ve adopted some of that in the six years since. Mind you I got great overtime when I used to do that which may have been some of the appeal too. 

So where am I in my neuron regeneration and new habit adaptation six years on from my SAH? I spend less time these days looking back and comparing to where I was and what I could do than I did. I think that’s probably healthy and also I’ve had six years to get used to and adapt to this version of myself and so I am wiser to my changed limits and hard edges. I still don’t get them right but hey who does.  But I have also cautiously stretched what I can attempt and take on and that offers me encouragement that it’s still the right thing to do to lean in and see how far I can go and slowly and steadily continue with regains.

Thing is brain injury does a strange thing to a girl and how I make, form and keep memories. For me it’s improved some of that recall ability for me and that has brought benefits, like being able to do a great photofit when our house got recently burgled.. After having to reteach myself ways to recall sights, objects, memories combined with paying attention it now makes me a bit of a serial pay attentioner. ( I know made up word) . I am incredibly visually attentive as a result . You won’t find me looking at my phone and walking as I would just fall over so if I do look at something I really look, and really notice  details and see what’s in my path and this newly honed skill of mine did trip up at least the accomplice sat outside my house that day.

Some things I know are out of the window probably forever, some things are a way off and that’s ok but I’m a lot further away from the wrapping papers that sat around the crazy time post bleed and James Shunt joining me and that distance feels good. Life goes on albeit to a differently paced drum.