UR TV CAST

I was suddenly aware of the great divide between those who have experienced the premature death of a loved one, and those who have not.There is a kind of madness in grief that throws our perception of the world off-beam. It acts as a defence mechanism to protect us from an otherwise unbearable reality You suddenly see everything more intensely. I felt self-conscious and separate from everyone, as if I had been thrown back into the state of a child who looks at the world for the first time. The thoughts that flood one’s head are bizarre; our behaviour can become unacceptable. How can it be otherwise? While the bereaved are trying to make sense of a fundamental change in their lives, the world goes on regardless You lose almost all touch with reality. You may appear normal to others, but inside your head is chaos.My eldest brother, Simon, died when I was 35; John died when I was 40. Both times I was completely cut off from the world for weeks.

I would walk down the street feeling a numbness surrounding me like cotton wool. There was an insurmountable barrier between me and everybody else Even my voice sounded at one remove. I would stare at passers-by and think, these people have no idea that I have just seen a dead man. At home, in contrast, my feelings for my children had intensified Life suddenly seemed so fragile, the children so vulnerable. If my brothers could be alive one minute and dead the next, so could my daughters.

My feelings were so close to the surface that anything remotely sad that I read in the papers or saw on television would bring floods of tears.For weeks after Simon died, and for all the months of John’s illness, I awoke every morning to be hit again by the terrible truth that I had gone to sleep the night before to escape: I was not having a nightmare. It was not a dream that would go away but one into which I had to walk and live until I could escape into sleep again that night. After Simon died the truth was unbelievable; in the months running up to John’s death, in spite of the evidence of his deteriorating body, it remained incredible that he was really going to die. Then, when it was all over, it was hard to believe that he was gone. I dreaded waking up each morning.During this time I lost control of the usual barriers between what I thought and what I said. When I was buying plates and napkins for John’s wake, the young man in the shop said, “Having a party, are we?” He was so cheerful I smiled at him. “No, a funeral,” I replied breezily.People on the street looked strange The business of everyday life seemed exhausting.

I remember wondering if I would ever be able to hold down my job again. After the deaths of both brothers, I found myself filled with a massive amount of energy. With Simon’s death I took just one day off work and then returned to the office and worked incessantly for weeks. In the evenings I lay on the sitting-room floor and cried my eyes out.After John died, I put that energy to better use. I painted a bedroom pistachio green and assembled three bookcases with hardly a break. In the evenings I lay on the sitting-room floor and listened to the music John had asked us to play at his funeral. Over and over again I imagined John making the final choice of music to be played after his death.Black humour often keeps the bereaved from going mad.

My siblings and I laughed at John’s preposterous request for a Mercedes hearse at his funeral. We laughed when the undertakers appeared to “lose” John’s body when it was supposed to be in the Chapel o­­ÿÿ­­ÿÿ­­ÿÿ­­ÿÿ­­ÿÿ­­ÿÿ­­ÿÿ­­ÿÿ­­ÿÿ­­ÿÿ­­ÿÿ­­ÿÿnniÿnniÿnniÿnniÿhhthhhthhhthhhthddwoddwoddwoddwors in the crowd. Simon, in particular, is often walking down the street on my way to work – bespectacled, dishevelled, lost in thought. Sometimes I have to run after this figure to confirm that it is not he. It leaves me feeling unsettled for hours.Only last week, 11 years after Simon’s death, I went to the wedding of a friend who had once worked with him. Suddenly I found tears pouring down my face and my throat seized up.