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I think a lot of us have been reflecting on grief a lot over the past few years. Grief for the life we used to have, the people we used to be and for those who have died as well as the importance of being able to be with people when you grieve, the long term effects of grief and even our own mortality .
In the last few years, six members of my extended family have died. Some I have never met, some I shared facebook messages with every now again and some who felt as much a part of me as my right arm. Most of them were taken in quite shocking and sudden ways. It felt like we were only starting to breathe with the revelation of one when the next one came along with a bang. It has led to a lot of discussion around grief, the different types of grieving, what life is and how we cope with most of it focusing on the emotional side of things - rightly so. But I’ve been thinking about the physical side of grief. How our physical selves are impacted by the death of a loved one.
It is well documented by doctors and scientists that there are many physical symptoms of grief including:
a hollow feeling in your stomach
tightness in your chest or throat
oversensitivity to noise
difficulty breathing
feeling very tired and weak
a lack of energy
dry mouth
an increase or decrease in appetite
finding it hard to sleep or fear of sleeping
aches and pains.
I can definitely tick a few of those off my list but I think they most noticeable change for me has been (surprise, surprise!) my weight.
I have put on a lot of weight in the last few years but very noticeably in the last few months. It wasn’t necessarily an increase in appetite though. Food and drink became a source of comfort as well as something to do with your mouth when you couldn’t find the words and something to keep yourself busy so there was no time to think. I also wasn’t going outside to exercise as I didn’t want to bump into anyone I knew and have a difficult chat. I didn’t exercise inside either because there wasn’t a lot of room or private space and I hate people looking at me when I exercise. I’m also afraid of the family dog so the garden is off limits to me.
And I have to say, I wasn’t bothered by it in the slightest. I knew that I was doing exactly what I needed to comfort myself at that time. From the outside, it may have looked like I was “letting myself go” but I think that is a lot to do with how we see fatness. For me, it was a sign that I was letting myself sit with the horror that we were all experiencing instead of bottling it up and trying to control it with a strict diet. It was healing.
Until the stretch marks appeared and then I had a freak out. Now, I thought I had stretch marks before, but they were just some silvery, wispy, ethereal fairy marks compared to these pulsing, purply red, thick roots that had sprung up seemingly overnight on my stomach and inner thighs. The kind of stretch marks you get after heroically carrying and birthing a baby not by swallowing a whole Toblerone to yourself. Note: I have also clearly not fully sorted out my head on how I view fatness.
I know I shouldn’t be ashamed of them. I know that so many of us have marks and skin conditions and that it just adds to the list of amazing things that the human body is capable of but at that moment I was ashamed. I was ashamed that I hadn’t done anything to earn them. I hadn’t given birth. In fact all I had done was grieve a child. A child that wasn’t mine.
Being an aunt is a weird thing, especially one that won’t have children. I love my nieces and nephew a disgusting amount. Like it’s revolting. If my family really knew how much, I think they’d disown me. Signs of affection are slagged off rather than embraced in my household, let’s say. So when my niece died, I felt very guilty for being so upset. I stopped myself from crying, for being ridiculous and reminded myself that I wasn’t even around - I was the absent aunt in London. And yet, it felt as if part of me had been ripped away. Those stretch marks now felt like claw marks. Like someone had physically ripped her away and the pain of it was now forever etched into my skin.
Some of my family actually did get tattoos to mark her passing. That felt very beautiful but I am extremely averse to pain so that wasn’t the road for me. However, I then began to think of my stretch marks as a tattoo. As a reminder that she existed. A reminder of the huge impact that she had on me even though she wasn’t mine or we didn’t spend all our time together. A reminder that food and drink were exactly what I needed at that time.
A reminder that bodies do not last forever.
So cherish them while they are here.
Stretch marks and all.
