ALL WE HAVE

Hospice: An institution focused on taking care of and nursing the terminally ill, also known as palliative care. Hospice institutions in Europe, in some form, have existed as far back as the 11th century, but were put into system in the 1950s in England by Dame Cicely Saunders.

In other words, a Hospice is a place you don't leave alive -  if you were lucky enough to get a room there.

Death does not frighten me any more. When my husband was at the Hospice for nine weeks before he died I needed to ask his nurses about death. I spent so much time there - day and night - and I watched those coffins being transported out. The first time I witnessed this I was told to stay away from the corridor, and especially to keep my husband away. By that time he was blind, so he wouldn't have seen anything anyway, but as I was to experience myself only a few weeks later, it was important to have the corridor and the moment to ourselves. They actually do a small quiet ceremony, light candles, let us say our goodbyes by the coffin, before it's taken to the cemetery, with us following the hearse in our own cars, magnetic plastic crucifixes on the car roofs. All other traffic stops in respect.

The first time I watched a coffin being transported away from the Hospice, I was sick - literally, for a day. But it drove everything home. He is not actually here on holiday, even though he's allowed to do everything he pleases! Drink his favourite liqueur in the morning, have wine and sandwiches in the middle of the night, ask for a hamburger whenever, have friends over all the time. And the same applied to me. I could do whatever I wanted, bring take-aways, drink wine, use the kitchen, join the nurses, spend time with them. Four days before my husband died my sister Kari and my brother-in-law Bjørn walked over from their house and we partied next to his bed, and he was most certainly a part of the party!

Still. It is death row.

The flag on half-mast, the hearse backing up to the entrance. Fortunately I did not ever get to know the other patients. Eleven rooms, eleven people dying of cancer. My husband - always the sociable one, the mingler - he was mostly without other Hospice companions in the common room. They were all at death's threshold, in their beds, not wanting to participate in anything. I have nothing but respect for this.

Yes, I asked the nurses about death, and how they coped. How they dealt with seeing patients dying, human beings they'd become acquainted with, perhaps started to become close to. I received answers, and they were all valuable to me:

We see death as a release, a comfort - after a long time in pain.

We cry too.

We become very fond of our patients.

We see some unbelievable courage.

We get to know and love some incredible families.

It's our job.

We get used to death. Everyone will die.

Pragmatic, realistic, yes, but also comforting. How is it possible that I think back to those nine weeks at the Hospice as good? The positive vibes, the including atmosphere. I looked forward to going there! To spend time with my husband, of course, but also just to be there! To roam the corridors, restless in the middle of the night - when he was asleep - being asked by reading, knitting, dozing nurses if I wanted a snack - sit down, talk - would you like a glass of wine?

How can you ENJOY being in a space of death? I found it so comforting.

And in the end my husband's coffin was taken out too, and pushed into a hearse. Beneath the half-mast flag.

Death became so close. Almost like a friend. We're here to be born, to live and to die. This is all we know. This is ALL we know. It is what we all have in common, if nothing else.

What frightens me more is life, and how to live it decently. Knowing and hearing what other people say about my husband - and only recently someone I don't even know spoke of him to my daughter - I realise that he came very close to living an exceptionally decent life.

We all strive towards it, I have no doubt. We do our best, and how can we not?

As death, life is all we know. All we have.

THE WALL

And so I hit rock bottom. I walked head on into a brick wall. I fell into a hole so black that it was like being buried alive. If you don't want to know, then this is a warning: Stop reading now. Because this is bleak. But my blog is not a pretend-blog, and one of its pillars is honesty. I might as well not write if I can't be honest.

On the one year date of my husband's death - I don't want to call it "anniversary" because to me that word implies celebration - April 6, I invited my family for dinner. My daughters, granddaughters, my husband's sister and one of his closest friends. It was a nice gathering, good food, warm conversation. But I felt uneasy, restless, fidgety. I was both looking forward to everyone leaving and dreading the moment they were gone.

I tried to go to sleep in the small hours, but instead everything broke. I did not recognise myself, my reactions were new to me. I pushed everything off his side of the bed - I leave clothes and my books there, it seems less empty that way - and for the first time in one year I lay on that side. His side. I melted into him, and I thought my crying would never stop. Not crying, but howling. I drowned. I fell. I died. My heart was wrenched out of me.

I spent the following day - April 7 - in bed, stuffing myself with sedatives. I was an exhausted zombie with a puffy face. Did I have a face? Was I obliterated now? Was there anything left? Any pieces to pick up?

I got up at 8 pm, I think. Watched some TV, I think. Went back to bed. I think I did. And I think I slept for ten hours. Did I? I can't be sure.

But Friday the 8th was okay. It was quiet. Like a calm after the storm. Fortunately it rained and rained, kept pouring down, wouldn't stop. Great. I couldn't have faced sunny weather. Best friend Grete invited me for pizza in a lively Italian restaurant, where all the waiters speak Italian and prefer to take your orders in this beautiful language. We, fortunately, were with Grete's son and his gorgeous Italian wife, so we could bask in her glory. This kind of experience helps heal me. Gives me a break. Soothes me.

Now, two weeks later, I am still quite zombie-like. I feel I merely - and barely - exist, but at least I try to lead my other "normal-life." Which I have done all the time. "Chin up"-kinda thing. While my other totally fragile and vulnerable self trudges along in circles in that dark pit, trying to make heads or tails of this complicated business we call life.

As always the analytic side of me pops out - explaining to the rest of me: It had to happen sooner or later. You've been through one year, seen all the special and difficult days come and go, thinking, NOW. Now I've been through them, the climb is upwards from now on. Then you realise, no. Those days will come and go, again and again and again. And yet again. And then once more. Year after year. Until one day comes - maybe - when everything has softened, memories are milder, contours mercifully blurred.

Again I find comfort in my friends and family. I am lucky. My sister Kari and one of her sons coming to good old-fashioned Sunday dinner, saying, you can stay with us as long as you like when you have to move out of your apartment (yes, I sold it). A coffee (or two) with a friend, who just listens to me. Two hours sitting cross-legged on the grass at my husband's grave with Grete yesterday, getting sunburned! (And I hate the sun these days)… Talking about things so existentialist, so profound, that the only way to break through is being a small baby bird knocking its beak through the eggshell. If it's able to. So fragile. Yes, Grete - your metaphor.

A long email from my Irish soulmate Addie, my sista from another mista. My brother from another mother. I know what she's going to say before she says it. She comforts me endlessly, she never tires of me.

And then, last night, hitting the neighbourhood café and bar for mussels and wine with, yes, my lovely neighbour.

All surviving techniques.

This has been hard to write, I know I'm exposing myself.

But it has to be this way or none at all.

FIFTY-TWO WEEKS

I stopped counting the weeks some time ago, but today I'm counting. Today it is fifty-two weeks since my husband died, at 9.15 in the evening, on Easter Monday. The date was april 6, which is the day after tomorrow.

During these fifty-two weeks I have lived a lifetime. I lived a lifetime up until his death, then I lived another one the following year. I have experienced a range of all emotions possible to human beings.

I have cried, I have shouted, I have raged, I have cursed. For hours I have sobbed quietly into my pillow at night. I have tossed and turned in my bed, half asleep, stretching my arm out to him, thinking he was there. I have heard his voice calling me.

I have had conversations with him in my mind - and out loud. I have talked to him about everyday problems, I have told him stories of our grandchildren, I have asked his advice. I have yelled at him insanely for leaving me alone.

I have thought I would go crazy. I have wondered if I AM already crazy. I have had mornings when it has been nearly impossible to get out of bed, both for lack of sleep and for simply not being able to face the world. There have been days when I have not got out of bed at all.

There have been days - and especially nights - when I have descended into a bottomless pit and seriously wondered if there is a point in going on living. I have been in some very dark places.

I have been frightened to hell and back, scared of being alone, terrified of not coping. I have been sick with worry and anxiety.

I have felt the deep void in and around me, the indescribable emptiness, the big black hole that your closest person leaves behind when he dies. The wall that has disappeared from your house, the rock that you have leaned on, the person always next to you that you take for granted and that you think will be there forever.

I have felt a loss and a longing that I didn't know existed.

I have been torn apart by guilt. I have run over again and again in my mind what I could have done differently during his 18-month long illness before he died. Was I near enough to him at the moment of death? Did he feel my presence? I have beaten myself up over how exasperated I was with him before he was diagnosed, how bewildered I was that he was falling asleep all the time, that he was so constantly exhausted. Why did I not put more pressure on him to contact a doctor earlier?

Coco Chanel said: "Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion to death." Yes. The burden of guilt is heavy. And very counterproductive. But not easy to shake off.

I have experienced that some of my closest loved ones have turned away from me during these fifty-two weeks, when I have needed them most, adding extra grief to an already exhausting struggle. I have spent a little time wondering why, but have come to no conclusion. I don't think I have laid my burdens on them. But I have learned that we all deal with grief in our own way, so I bear no grudges.

Have I not felt any happiness during these fifty-two weeks? Not seen one glimpse of light shining through to me again? Happiness, no. A little bit of light now and again, yes. I feel I'm living two parallel lives - one day-to-day life that must be lived in order to keep my head above water - meeting friends, spending time with my family, taking care of daily chores. Making a real effort to go on living. The other life is one trudging along through a dark tunnel, somewhere deep down under layers of sand, earth, clay and heavy clouds. Thick fog wrapping a stupefying blanket around it all.

I, who always saw happiness and light and joy everywhere, who looked on the bright side of life, angling things positively, have changed. Grief has changed me. But I have not lost my ability to laugh, I have not lost my sense of humour. I am still able to see the beauty in objects around me, in nature, in food, in books, in music. I enjoy myself with my family and my friends! Of course I do. My tightly knit family has if possible grown even closer, and a long Easter holiday spent with some of them in France is the kind of thing that gives meaning to life.

A year ago, at the Hospice

We learn from our experiences, well, most of us do. Not all, unfortunately! The three most important and profound types of knowledge that have become completely lucid to me over these fifty-two weeks are:

Life is short. Life is precious. Your loved one is there one moment, gone the next. Be nice, be kind, in brief: LOVE. We should stretch ourselves far to show our love, to live it.

People are there for you. They really are! I never thought I'd discover so much sympathy, empathy and genuine concern from both close ones and not so close ones. Now they're all close! I look at people differently now, and have realised how willing and ready they all are to show you their heart. 

"'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." (Alfred Lord Tennyson, from In Memoriam).

DARK CLOUDS ON THE HORIZON (OR HOW TO CONQUER YOUR FEARS)

I have just come home from London, where the above photo was taken. Unmistakably, as you can see, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, the snapshot is from a capsule in the London Eye. I suffer from vertigo, and all I could think of when entering the capsule was a memory of seeing one of them - a capsule that is - being carried swiftly down the Thames on a boat for repairs the last time I was in London. Had it fallen down? Had it broken in mid-air and shot through the sky to land on the river? Ripped itself loose from its bearings and dangled sideways or upside down for a few horrendous moments before hurtling through the grey London mist to splash wildly up the walls of Big Ben? Rational sense is absent when you have any sort of anxiety or paranoia.

Terrified but brave

The London trip was my Christmas present to daughter Johanne and granddaughters Jelena and Mira. Mira, who is also scared of heights, was the one who persuaded me to take the enormous Ferris wheel while the other two were shopping, and we could feel each other's hands sweating while we were queuing to enter the capsule. "How are you dealing with this?" I asked my ten year-old granddaughter. "Well, you just have to conquer your fears," she replied. 

Okay. 

Stiff smiles

London is one of my favourite cities, but this visit was on my granddaughters' terms. Their choices, their wishes. British Museum, London Eye, shopping, Madame Tussauds, a musical in the West End. Well, I managed three compromises - underwear shopping in Marks & Spencer's, a massage while the others were at Madame Tussauds, and the fantastic Les Misérables which is playing in its 29th year at the Queen's Theatre. The latter was not really a compromise - none of us had seen it. Otherwise we pretty much agreed on everything.

Instead of hotel rooms I rented a flat for us through Airbnb, which for the second time proved to be a perfect choice. For much less than the price of two ugly hotel rooms in expensive London, we spent five nights in pure luxury in the most wonderful location just off Portobello Road in Notting Hill. THIS is where Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts courted! Actually William Thacker (Hugh Grant) lived just around one corner, and his bookshop was round the other. I was Anna Scott for a day or two there… (No one spilt their orange juice on me though…)

Supper "at home" in Notting Hill

Viwe from my bedroom

View on Portobello Road from our flat. Market day. Old guy with ghetto blaster on full volume, never tiring of his energetic moves. Even older woman (in white shoes and white hair) considers joining in). 

Flat on top floor

I slept well in London. No wonder perhaps, when you see the above photo of my bedroom and the view on the mews off the Portobello Road. I heard nothing, except the bells of the All Saints Church in the morning, just beyond the Dunworth Mews. I had brought my little helpers to London - the Oxazepam and the sleeping pills - but had no need for either of them. Counting my sleeping pills, I have taken ten altogether since I got the prescription at the end of August last year, so I'm not exactly an addict. I've halved them when they've been needed though, so I've taken them twenty times. (That's 0.833 pills per month). The Oxazepam (3-4 consumed in about a year) are fantastic - they remove worries, anxiety, insomnia, unrest and uneasiness all in one go, but knock me out completely way into the following day. As today. I've been dizzy, unconcentrated, tired and blue.

Yes blue. Yes sad. Yes depressed.

But to compensate and try to feel better I did the following today, though it took a lot of effort: Appointment with brother-in-law the dentist (never a problem - he keeps telling me my teeth are perfect). Dizziness nearly made me pass out in his dentist chair. Drove my car through the car wash. Had lunch (minestrone soup) and caffe latte at neighbourhood café. Returned home and cleaned windows in my flat and they turned out perfect (good cleaning kit).

I was exhausted but did feel better.

I see some dark clouds looming on the horizon for me soon. My husband died on Easter Monday - the 6th April last year. Easter is coming up, though it's earlier this year. April 6 is approaching.

I feel my despondency returning with full force these days. My aloneness, my deep deep loss. I try so hard to stay positive and brave, but hey! I'm not. I have friends who tell me that I am, but I am not. I am forever changed by my loss, and my emotions and anxieties still get the better of me and probably will for a long time. My everyday fears are real - not being able to cope with the smallest details, not having that familiar man to lean on, my best friend and companion, the one I always confided in and trusted. His safe warm body next to mine. The total emptiness on that side of the bed.

The real fear of lying down at night and knowing my head will spin with unstoppable thought threads.

Conquer your fears. Sometimes it takes a ten year-old granddaughter to tell you and to know you. I will do it - in time - with her support, and the support of all the other fantastic people that form a loving and flowing but tight circle around me.

In time.

Pizza by the metre in Notting Hill

COMPARISONS

My husband's grave is next to my favourite park - and his - Vigelandsparken

In my last blog post I set out to write about the way we tend to measure things, or compare, always wishing to be the one with the best outcome. It is the competitiveness laid down in us perhaps. I was going to write about how we even compare grief. That blog post turned out to become something completely different, but why not? Sometimes your mind and your keyboard just seem to live lives of their own.

When I was in France before Christmas there was a terrorist attack - or several - on Paris on November 13. In the concert arena Le Bataclan, where 89 people were killed, several restaurants and bars, the Stade de France. There were altogether six attacks. 130 people were killed, 368 injured, many seriously. Seven terrorists lay dead afterwards, killed by their own suicide vests. An eighth one was stalked out and killed by police five days later. The weather was glorious all over France this particular week, with temperatures exceeding normal November chilliness and people gathering outside on "les terrasses." And that was why many of the victims were an easy match, enjoying the unusually fine evening "en terrasse."

France has become my "second" country. My husband and I bought a house in Languedoc-Roussillon in 2002, and one of many reasons why this was our choice is that I speak French. But I have learnt to love France in so many ways during these 14 years! Believing that TV is a good way to improve my French I have sat in front of 4-hour long incredibly profound debates, with participants from the grassroots, where there is no interruption - everyone gets to have their say. Never-ending political discussions - people in power being shown no mercy by brilliant journalists. Merciless documentaries too, where no stones are left unturned. Absolutely NO respect for authority - this characterizes the French and must have started with the Revolution 227 years ago. I stand corrected - French kids respect a couple of authorities - parents and teachers. Les professeurs, les parents, at least other children's parents. I have experienced all the cheeky teenagers in my street standing at attention the moment I've appeared in the doorway: "Bonsoir, Madame! Oui, Madame! Bien sûr, Madame!"

The French - with their traditional finger to political authority - can be provocative - but I admire them and their unflinching belief in freedom of speech.

So - measuring grief. This is what I was reflecting on after the Paris attacks.

When some people started covering their social media profile pictures with the French flag, others got very irritated and referred to other terrorist attacks that had recently hit in other parts of the world. One of the reasons for the frustration was of course that for instance Facebook quickly offered you a way to drape your face in the Tricolore, whereas they don't do the same with other countries' flags in similar circumstances. I see the point.

But to me there's another important point: Personal proximity to the terrorist attack, or the natural disaster, or the plane crash - has a lot to do with which grief you manage to take in. The world is full of tragedy - unbearable, unbelievable, inhumane tragedy - and I think every person has a barrier, a shield, to protect themselves from the horrors of the world and the atrocities of the human race. If you took it upon yourself to grieve every single life lost, then - yes, then you would go mad.

So grieving for the victims of the Paris terrorist attacks cannot be a wrong thing to do, even if you do not grieve that much for the Beirut victims or the lost lives in Nigeria. It does not mean you are heartless. When I was young I lived a year in Kuwait. Fifteen years later Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, and I was sick with worry for my friends there, for the people I'd come to to know and love. I'm sure I worried more than most other western Europeans, to whom Kuwait was just another Middle Eastern country. On July 22, 2011 we experienced our own crazy atrocious right wing terrorist in Norway, who killed 77 innocent people in two attacks that this peaceful little country had never foreseen. I was on holiday in Bulgaria at the time and was shocked that the world did not stop there and then. I remember coming out into the bright sunshine after having watched news reports on TV for hours and hearing the usual holiday noises of laughter, splashing water and children's happy squeals, and thinking - Don't they CARE?

Daughter Julie reading messages in Oslo centre

Daughter Johanne laying down roses on the mainland opposite Utøya (the island)

Of course they cared, but not the way we did. How could they? Most of the holiday makers in the summer resort in Bulgaria had no relationship or connection with Norway, some didn't even know where this country was.

Norwegian journalist Åsne Seierstad has written about the terrorist attacks in this book - One of Us, available in English. It's heartbreakingly painful to read, you have to steel yourself against unbearable descriptions. (The terrorist was so close to home for me - he lived round the corner and parked his bomb van on the street we lived. Went to the same school).

Reflections on grief have of course taken up space in my own mind these past years, because my husband became ill and died. Measuring grief, or comparing - you can take it all down to a personal level. Which will hit you most - the loss of a friend, a grandparent, a parent, a partner or a child or grandchild? Oh yes, I have spent some time thinking about this. Because I've been so totally struck down by grief after I lost my husband - more than I ever imagined possible - I have thought: Is my grief worth less than the grief of someone who has lost their child? Or worth more than the loss of an old parent? I lost my 88-year old mother only 9 months before my husband died - can I compare the two losses?

Digging into literature and articles about grief experiences - not least to find out if my own reactions were normal - I've found that there is a pattern - and not. I've discovered that GRIEF is NORMAL. I've noticed that a lot of mourners have similar reactions - "am I going crazy now?" - and I have seen that grief emotions vary from person to person. Some grieve incessantly after the death of an old parent with whom they've been very close. Some seem to manage to go on remarkably quickly after the death of a child. Whatever we do it's not in our power to judge one or the other.

For myself I know that the worst ever would be to lose a child. Nothing could compare with that. Reading Åsne Seierstad's book on the 22nd July terrorism brought it home to me - the majority of those killed that day were teenagers and young adults. You should not die before your parents. But we know it happens - I know several people who have lost children - and it breaks my heart again and again even to think about it. They are all incredibly strong to have been able to go on at all. I don't know if I could have.

But I am able to go on without my husband, although I've often thought not. In that sense it might not be possible to measure grief. I've been so permeated with sadness that I've sometimes not managed to get out of bed in the morning. This still happens.

But I think I might be entering a new phase of grief now. My emotions are more stable, I would even say flat, my state of mind not so "roller-coasterish." I am almost numb these days. Is numbness good or bad? I don't know. We'll see.

I am back in France at the moment, meeting spring. I love coming here in February because every sign of spring is that much earlier here than in the cold north. Mimosas everywhere, almond trees blossoming in white and pink. The photos above are from this exact time three years ago. I manage to look at them with joy, trying not to think about the tragedy that was to strike us eight months later, when my husband was diagnosed with brain cancer. I remember some very happy days, walking in the Pyrenees, along the Mediterranean shore, strolling to the village to eat in our favourite restaurant Can Marty, where the patron Jean-Francois always had chilled Grand Marnier Rouge ready with coffee after dinner for the only customer who wanted it. (He asked me last time I was there - "What shall I do with it now?")

And I remember having just started my blog and being eager about it, and my husband being excited and happy for me, saying - "I'll cook. You get on with your blog, sweetheart. Shall I bring you a glass of wine?"

So I walked the same path yesterday, intensely drinking in the same view, the same trees, the same hills, the same colours - that he loved - and I still love.

So how can I wrap up my reflections on grief comparisons? Is there a conclusion? Well, I don't know if there is. Grief will come to all of us sooner or later, and we will deal with it in our own way. But we WILL know that we share it with all other human beings. Whether it's global or personal. 

But I do believe that the closer the tragedy is to home - and to our own heart - the heavier it is.