Aisha’s Story
My initial memories of grief are always really hazy, they’re never quite clear. I went back to school two weeks after losing Dad, and although that sounds as though it wasn’t enough time, I think it was the single best decision that I made that year. I remember sitting in my head teacher’s office, when they said “SeeSaw are a good charity, they offer bereavement support – I can see if they can help”. Naturally, it was put to the bottom of the list for a long time. I had to think about other things, like the fact I wasn’t going to see my Dad for Sunday Lunch that week and who was going to walk me down the aisle? not stuff like therapy, that was for when things got really bad.
After 12 solid months, SeeSaw reached out again. Whilst inconsistently attending sixth form, I had Friday mornings free and so did Steven, my paired volunteer. Steven had the air of character from Wind in the Willows, he was calm and collected but also not afraid to ask the questions that not many people in my immediate circle knew how to ask. It was exactly what I needed in and amidst the chaos. It was a slice of serenity, sat side by side to confusion.
SeeSaw helped by offering me 1:1 support to help with understanding my grief. They weren’t there to tell me what to do, they were there to listen to what I needed and understand how to digest what was happening around me. Their support for me felt tailored as an older teen. I was 18 and I was really scared.
After several sessions with Steven, I was processing death in a really different way. Steven gave me the analogy of the grief bubble, it was hard to comprehend at first, but like a lot of the parables and analogies that you absorb when someone dies, they make complete sense several years after they are delivered to you.
I have learnt so much about my grief as I have grown up. I have truly found so much love and joy in life and so much beauty in being a sensitive person. I struggled with this at first, I felt for a very long time, quite wounded by my sensitivity. I felt like the wound that grief left was a huge gash on my head that everybody could see, and as soon as my emotions rose, so did my blood to the wound and that nothing could be done to halt it.
My grief journey was complicated and has honestly presented itself in many ways I would have never had expected it to be connected to. It presented itself in social settings, in which I would burn out so quickly due to the amount of energy it took to even leave the house to see friends. I became a perfectionist, wanting to try and do everything I could to achieve goals because I didn’t want people to think my grief defined me.
I am somebody who has always kept my tears pretty close to the surface, and I’m sad I ever felt ashamed by that. I carry my sensitivity with such a tender embrace nowadays, I hold it as I would hold younger me – one who had lost her Dad and needs a place to scream and shout. But I don’t judge her, I don’t tell her to be quiet – I just let the emotions rise and hold her. Because one thing sensitivity is not, is a weakness. I’ve learnt that grief has made me tender and it has made me view life through such a lens of gratitude and warmth and it’s that form of growth that I hold value to.
Dad passed away when I was 17, in my first year of sixth form. When I was 18, my singular achievement was to sit in the exam halls for my A-Levels. When I was 19, I had aspirations to work and travel to Saint Lucia, a country where my grandfather came to the UK in the 60’s, however the pandemic meant that I couldn’t travel. But magically, by the time I was 20, I was heading to my university halls to study.
Keep your expectations of yourself kind – it’s the biggest gift you can give yourself. Remind yourself of the things you would tell your best friend, your sibling or a partner, talk to yourself in the third person and assure yourself it gets better. Find the fire in sunsets and not in the surroundings, lean on your community, make community and connections with people who bring you warmth and straight back to your roots. Grief gifts you such a tender perception of the world, it might take a while to let the rage pass but give it its time and you will soften with its existence.
