Serena Malcolm

Navigating a world without your loved one is a challenge. And a funeral, while it provides comfort and closure, does not flick a magic switch on your grief.

We need to recognise grief is an ongoing process and allow ourselves the space to figure out what to do with the… space… our loved one left behind.

If you are grieving, be kind to yourself. It takes as long as it takes and I don’t know who needs to hear this but you are not doing it wrong!!

I am trying to take my own advice. That in itself is a process!


When the Organ Stills

I took down the cards today.
Each one tucked inside the next like nesting dolls,
The top one reads

“A father’s love is always with his children”

I see a smudge on the corner from a stray tear as I place them inside my desk,
Your order of service still sits inside my handbag,
I can’t bring myself to take it out,
To glimpse the you from decades ago that would beam up at me from the cardstock.

I have other bags.

And so the final reminders of our final goodbye are out of sight,
But no, no, no, not out of mind.

I still feel untethered,
Unmoored,
Unloosed,
Unhinged,
How do I begin to move through a world that you are no longer in?

“A father’s love is always with his children”

Maybe.

But it feels so very far away,
In a place, on a plane, that cannot be reconciled inside my brain,
So when the organ stills,
And the shovels rest,
And all the well-wishers stop being sorry for my loss,
I pinch my arm and squeeze shut my eyes and compel your voice to fill my mind,
Because the world feels too wide,
And too loud,
And too bright,
And I can’t explain it but it’s like my life is now, somehow, on the wrong foot?

How do I just…. move on? When the only one to ever stoke the fires of my will
is gone?