Mourning sickness: our conspiracy of silence over grief

No one can say that, over the course of the past year, we have not had the opportunity as a country to practise the grim arts of grief and mourning. We all know the figures — 127,000 Covid deaths and counting — but I wonder if, in the face of this onslaught, we have lost sight of the vital fact that behind each loss there will be a group of family members and close friends of the deceased setting out on the long, slow trudge down the boggy path of grief. How are we dealing with this suffering?

When my father died extremely suddenly six years ago, there was one thing for which I was even more unprepared than the abrupt absence of the most cheerful person I had ever had the pleasure to know. It was the fact that far too many people found it hard to look me in the eye and say how sorry they were for my loss. That is all it would have taken, a simple and clear acknowledgement of a terrible event, but it happened with dispiriting infrequency. Instead, my mother and I were subjected to excruciating hours of small talk while the grief-shaped elephant in the room trumpeted and trampled. Mum and I took to calling this ‘the conspiracy of silence’. Our sadness made other people feel awkward and their awkwardness trumped our need to talk and — gasp — even cry in the immediate aftermath. Why British people have such a fear of the tears of others remains a mystery to me. When I am feeling charitable, I tell myself that the human instinct is to want to fix things that are wrong, and death remains the ultimate unfixable event. I regret to say that I do not always feel charitable.