annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Grief and the Pier
This is National Grief Awareness Week in the UK so I thought I'd write about it. I only found out by accident - no sign of it in public life. 
Somehow I managed to delete everything I wrote, but there are two pictures that sum it up. My brilliant daughter, who'd studied Ancient Greek and Latin, transformed back into an innocent, her mind wiped clean, or almost clean. She knew us, her family and she drifted in and out of some kind of consciousness, but she was gone. All I wanted was to pick her up and cradle her in my arms, keep her safe, make sure she knew she was loved, always. But instead I had to drive away and leave her in a care home, alone, at the mercy of a bunch of over-worked, knackered care home staff, five of them trying to do the work of twenty. I cried all the way round the M25 every time I drove up to see her - I didn't want to see this Sam, I wanted my Sam, I wanted us to talk, for her to tell me how she was, what she needed, what she planned. Then I cried all the way home, beyond words.
The second picture is me, obvs, my resting face. Every time I tried to take a selfie to post on the page for the walking challenge, thinking I was smiling, this was what I found. This is me thinking I'm conveying a kind of stoical cheerfulness until I see the photo. Grief hurts. It just hurts and hurts and hurts. Not all day every day any more, but it's where I come back to.
But I painted this today and sold it to dear K. On we go, dear friends, on we go.
11:30 p.m. - 05.12.23
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------