‘Grief doesn’t work to a normal clock’
Andrew Marshall lost his partner 20 years ago but his diary of love and loss has helped others going through bereavement
When my partner Thom died 20 years ago, he was just 43 and I was 37. I did not have the first idea how to cope with the grief that enveloped me. So I did what had worked through his long debilitating illness: focused on getting through the immediate crisis. I even turned up to record five editions of my Agony television show, where I offered relationship advice to cable viewers, three days after Thom’s death.
One of my friends said, “You’ll be OK, you’re a therapist, you’ll know what to do.” I nodded in agreement because I desperately wanted to believe him. But the only person I’d ever truly been able to open up to had died; the only place I could express the depth of my pain was in my diary.
Meeting Thom, loving Thom and losing Thom, seven and a half years later, changed my life, but our society does not like to talk about death. We use euphemisms, such as “passing” or “slipping away”, but the reality isn’t necessarily so easy. I sat at Thom’s bedside as he struggled for breath while his lungs filled with fluid and he effectively drowned. When his mother asked if it had been peaceful, I lied. She was suffering enough already.
By not facing up to the enormity of death, however, we don’t give enough support to the people left behind. Sure, we’re great in the immediate aftermath; we turn up to the funeral and tell the bereaved, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.” But it takes a lot longer than that to recover, and many widows, widowers and adults who have lost a parent end up feeling lost or abandoned.
Despite having written 18 self-help books about relationships, and counselling more than 5,000 clients over 30 years, I am a very private man, and have never spoken or written about myself. But over the years, I lent the diary I kept during the year after Thom’s death to friends and colleagues who had lost a loved one, and their response was nearly always the same: “Thank goodness, I’m not the only person going mad.”
Now, to mark the 20th anniversary of Thom’s death, and to campaign for the idea of a ‘mourning year’ where we acknowledge and offer the extra support needed by the bereaved, I have decided to break my silence. I want to show that there is no right or wrong way to grieve and everybody – even therapists – make mistakes.
So what did I wish I knew then that I know now? Bereavement has the knack of finding the fault lines in your life and blowing them apart. It exposed that my parents were not entirely comfortable with me being gay and I was not comfortable with their polite but distant way of showing they cared.
And – this is the really tough part – it all happens when you have no energy. I would go to friends’ houses, curl up on their sofa and sleep for 20 minutes. It took me two or three months to feel strong enough to have a meaningful conversation with my parents.
With hindsight, I would say that’s fine, but at the time I expected too much of myself too soon and felt guilty for leaving it so long. This is the most important message of all: grief does not work to a conventional clock. Sometimes it feels like 20 months since Thom died and I still find new things to mourn. (Just recently, I wept about never getting to know him as an old man.) At other times, Thom’s death seems so long ago that it happened to someone else – perhaps because I’m not the same man I was 20 years ago.
My biggest mistake was a rebound relationship that began less than four months after Thom’s death. I needed to be held. I wanted to feel ‘normal’ – and I did, for about 20 minutes. But I could not cope with my own emotions, let alone anybody else’s. I couldn’t break off the relationship, because that seemed like abandoning my new boyfriend (and I’d had enough of that already) but I couldn’t carry on.
How long should you wait before making any big changes, like starting a new relationship or quitting your job? I would suggest a year and getting through all the meaningful events, such as your birthday, Christmas and your wedding anniversary. It took me three and a half years to meet Ignacio, the man to whom I’m now married.
Unfortunately, counselling didn’t work for me, which was upsetting because I’d thought of therapy as the holy grail. The problem was partly me: therapists make terrible clients.
My counsellor answered all my questions by turning them round and asking, “What do you think?” I’ve used the technique myself a million times, telling my clients, “You can’t expect me to have all the answers.” With the shoe on the other foot, I wanted to scream, “Why not?”
I needed to explore spiritual questions – like, is there life after death? – so I used the money to go to the theatre instead, which at its heart is about characters changing, and I found joy and peace in the secondhand catharsis.
What else helped? I started to ask for what I needed and being very specific about it. Thom was German and had often talked about the glory of the autumn leaves in the forests near where he grew up, but we’d never been over at the height of the colour. So I asked his brother to accompany me for what I now realise was a pilgrimage into Thom’s past.
My next piece of advice would be to bring new things into your life. I was a journalist but had never written anything creative, so I took a short course in playwrighting; over the past 20 years, I have had half a dozen of my plays produced.
It is important to mark the first anniversary. I had a dinner party for our closest friends. I asked everyone to bring something that reminded them of Thom. They brought poems, songs and stories. It was an emotional evening, but the next morning, I felt parts of myself that had closed down since Thom’s death opening up.
Ultimately, bereavement is about taking back the responsibilities and tasks you gave up to your beloved, both practical and emotional. Thom was a great cook and I had learnt to be helpless in the kitchen. He always made me feel special and I had to learn to do that for myself.
Conversely, it is also about integrating a small part of your lost loved one into yourself. Volunteering to look after a friend’s dog was the sort of random act of kindness Thom would have done, and I found the companionship of another living creature healing. I went on to get a puppy myself, and have been a dog owner ever since.
Bereavement is a wake-up call that none of us is immortal. So I worked hard on improving my relationship with my parents and they have not only learnt to accept me but came to my wedding, two years ago, with joy in their hearts.
Perhaps this is the reality of mourning: you never get over the loss, but if you allow it to open you up to new experiences, you can transform your life into something that might be different but still rewarding and meaningful.
My Mourning Year: A memoir of
bereavement, discovery and hope by Andrew Marshall is published by Red Door. To order your copy for £9.99 plus p&p call 0844 871 1514 or visit books. telegraph.co.uk
‘If you allow a loss to open you up to new experiences, you can transform your life’