Allow me my loss of control

Bereavement is a strange thing. Being of a certain age, it comes along a lot more often these days, I have noticed. There’s not much passes me by, you know, certainly not either death or taxes.

It’s very peculiar when you find yourself with a season ticket for the crem and a complete inability to get beyond the first two bars of Abide With Me before dissolving into an emotionally-incontinent pile on the floor. This is particularly inappropriate when the deceased person’s family is manfully holding it together in the front row and you (or me, in most cases) are doing a disturbingly accurate impression of a complete spineless wazzock in one of the rear pews.

I’ve tried everything. Biting the end of my tongue, thinking of completely inapt comedy shows, allowing my attention to wander to the finer points of stained glass or purple velvet drapery or even planning my own happy release. FYI: I’m going down into the bad fire to the strains (how apt) of my own singing of Lady Macbeth vengeance aria as composed by Verdi, with the assembled congregation of two men and a dug getting the chance to sashay out down the pub to Paolo Nutini’s Pencil Full of Lead. Leave ’em laughing, I say, or at least shaking their heads in disbelief. Why, in death, change the habits of a lifetime?

Loss

Black humour, of course, is a marvellous refuge when contemplating the ultimate darkness. Whatever gets you through, go for it, as far as I’m concerned. But reactions to loss are strange and manifold and in a week where so many people, and especially those related to the victims of the awful Las Vegas shootings, are not even beginning to come to terms with a world turned upside down, I’ve been thinking a lot about this.

Like most people, I’ve lost a parent, several close relatives – including a cousin who was really a sister – beloved friends and the significant others of many people I hold particularly dear. We find a way through it. People I know, such as those who have lost partners in an untimely way or after many years together, seem to manage it in a way that fills me with amazement and admiration.

Words like “closure”, “process” and “healing” are bandied about with gay abandon but you know what? Most of it is just talk because there really isn’t anything to say. I think in some respects the Victorians were right. They had a set period where you were allowed to be an absolute mess before resuming anything approaching normal service. And that was the era that practically invented the concept of the stiff upper lip.

Waterfall

Yet I recall quite distinctly waking up at about 6am on the morning of my father’s funeral and thinking: “I can do this” and actually managing to get through it without making an exhibition of myself. I cried, of course, I was sore inside and out and I couldn’t have listened to the pure melody of Cavalleria Rusticana’s Intermezzo (one of Dad’s favourites) if you had paid me serious money. But I did it in a reasonable state of repair on the day, although, of course, the fall-out can creep up on you unawares for days, weeks, months and years afterwards.

So you would think I could get a grip in other, supposedly less intimate encounters with death and despondency.

But last week, after more than 18 years with us and far from unexpectedly, the lovely Ally the cat slept away into the great cattery in the sky. And, right on cue, I fell apart. I was a heap. I still am. It’s very weird, like standing outside your body watching a stranger, wondering why on earth this person who looks like you can’t seem to exercise any form of control over their faculties. My face is like a waterfall pouring down over a rock formation. What’s happening on the surface seems to have no connection with what’s going on underneath. It’s literally unstoppable. And I don’t recall having felt quite like this over any other loss.

I don’t mean that losing a pet is worse than – or even as bad as – losing a parent or a partner, although there is a school of thought that does. In my defence, I am not one of those people who treat their animals like babies or mini, hairy humans. I like cats and dogs because they’re cats and dogs, not because they’re people substitutes.

I just don’t remember, when my dearest humans departed, being such a pigging wreck. Maybe it’s cumulative and symbolic and all that stuff. Maybe it’s “venting” or “expelling” or whatever. Maybe it’s just the last straw in a difficult year. Maybe it’s just being human and realising that love is love, wherever you find it.

I miss my dad. I always will. I miss my cousin/sister more than I can say. And already I miss Ally like crazy.

And you know what? I think I’m allowed to, don’t you?

Picture: Getty images. My face is like a waterfall... and that’s all right.