Don’t hesitate

“Joy is not made to be a crumb” wrote Mary Oliver, though ironically it is this crumblike fragment that is probably her best-known quotation – and it’s a good one, delicious in the mouth, but it hardly gives up the whole of the power of her poem “Don’t Hesitate“, which has within it a great cry of grief, as well as of an upswelling of optimism:

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case.
Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

Last Thursday was my tenth wedding anniversary, which came sixteen years and a couple of weeks after my first official date with Kieran. In another life, we would have celebrated this anniversary with much quiet happiness. But in yet another life, we might never have recovered from the wreckage of things between us that came from his great and last breakdown, and perhaps I would have grieved on that anniversary for different things.

Suicide bereavement nearly always comes with multiple layers of grief. While people will often say they “never saw it coming”, the truth is that for those closest to those who died have often been in the trenches of grief for a long time before death happens. My therapist said to me today – “how much longer could you have endured?” when I expressed my guilt about – many things, really, including not being physically present the day Kieran took his life, because I had been seeking some brief respite from many weeks of watchful horror.

Last Thursday, that decade on since my wedding day, I got on a plane with a beloved friend and flew to Alicante. Above the clouds the sun set, the most brilliant sunset, and I felt the weight of things fall away from me. I looked at the colour of the sky and felt joy in my chest like a live thing, a bird taking flight.

We had three days in a glorious city, the kind of place my soul feels lit up: by the sight of the sea, by the soft night air warm on my skin, by the taste of the food, and perhaps most of all by the colours. Brilliant colours everywhere, like the instant where love begins.

In the city I ate with my eyes as well as my mouth, food rich in colour and flavour, taste of the sea and the land, at scrappy little bars and market stalls and dimly-lit upscale restaurants and on the street, and laughed with the pleasure of it. In the time of my grief, and particularly lately, I have found am not afraid of the giddy possibility of joy. I am here to eat at its table, with appetite. I have earned my place: as have you, darling reader, who I know are very likely to have lost someone yourself. I won’t say don’t feel guilt, because working through that guilt is part of the process of mourning, a thing that needs to be done, like cleaning a wound so it can heal. What I will say is this: your feelings are not crumbs to be swept away, good or bad. I honour the full expression of your grief, in all its strange ugly difficult parts as well as the more palatable bits that society accepts. But if you can, don’t feast only on pain. Where there is a mouthful of joy to be had, I hope you snatch it. I hope you hold it on your tongue and savour it, even if it melts away in a moment. Nothing lasts forever, but – life has so much possibility left.

If you enjoy my work, you’re welcome to support it on ko-fi. This writing will always remain free for anyone who needs it.