‘Grief is Like Being in Pitch Darkness’: Navigating the Sudden Death of My Mum

By Sarah Heanaghan

‘Show me how it gets better.’ I was explaining to Mum about a clip I had recently seen in which a psychologist explains how we can train our minds to look for certain things. The warm winter sun was streaming through the windscreen as we drove through the pretty rural roads to the last place Mum would be. Though we didn’t know it would be, in that moment.

When I was around eight or nine years old, I wanted so much to be like Sporty Spice. I loved the double plait hairstyle she often wore, and I would beg Mum to do it for me. She hadn’t done it before so had to learn as she went, often getting frustrated and dropping her hands full of my hair to start again. Somewhere I had learnt the typical adage, ‘if you think you can’t then you won’t!’ which I would tell Mum when she started to give up. It annoyed her further but she later admitted that it was true.

I brought up this memory in the car and we laughed about it. I then told her about the video clip and how our minds usually find the quickest path, like water following the path of least resistance. If we say to ourselves, to our brains, ‘show me how it gets better’ we will start to look for signs, ideas and ways that support this. Mum loved this notion as she always said to us growing up that good always comes from bad. Sadly, I didn’t know how quickly I would need to utilise this advice.

That evening, Mum suddenly and unexpectedly died. It was deeply traumatic watching the rescue efforts and futile attempts at reviving her. It was excruciating. First not being able to save her, then the deep-set realisation that this was actually happening. I wanted so desperately for it not to be true, for it to be a mistake.

It had always been my worst fear, even though I knew it was inevitable. One day, it happens to us all. But as it was happening, everything I felt and experienced was not what I expected. For me, it was not like the movies had portrayed, where everything goes silent and it feels like a blur. Everything seemed so vivid and horribly clear. Time didn’t speed up or merge together; it was long and I had to endure each painful second. It was such a raw emotion that I actually felt vividly alive.

Getting driven home in silence and returning without Mum felt wrong. In fact, everything after that traumatic moment in time felt uncomfortable and incorrect. Like permanently wearing your shoes on the wrong feet. It was just not right. 

In the days and weeks that followed, I noticed that a fundamental part of me had left with her. I felt a permanent shift at the core of who I was. Like countries that were once together that are now forever set apart. A seismic shift. If I only exist because of her, how can I exist without her?

Everything I knew about death seemed so confusing. How can someone so full of life and love just no longer be? My world had imploded, and I couldn’t understand how no one else could feel it. The air felt different, and the days felt bland. It was so palpable. I was angry to see cars still travelling along, people still laughing and living. I couldn’t understand why everything and everyone wasn’t at a standstill.

On the day of her funeral, I immediately felt small, like that eight-year-old wannabe Spice Girl again. Even though I am an adult, I felt I couldn’t be left without parental supervision. I was too young to be without her. My back felt vulnerable now and I felt so untethered. Lost and adrift, floating with no attachment. And the one person who I would normally seek help from was gone.

For a long time, I lived in a period of painful rumination. Going over her awful last moments and wishing I could change the outcome. Everything was different now. Birthdays didn’t feel like birthdays and even normal days felt hollow without the feeling of knowing someone is out there loving me unconditionally, proud of me no matter what. Mum gave me value. Now that she was gone, I wasn’t sure I still mattered.

I had this permanent feeling of homesickness. This constant yearning to return to my comfort place, my safe space. I could go anywhere but I couldn’t go home because she was my home.

It can feel at times as though society wants grief to be short-lived. Put it down to a bad month, then ‘get over it’ and ‘move on’. It can feel like the more we are grieving the more others feel the burden to care. But grief is not a short story. In fact, it’s not really a story at all. There is no end. No conclusion.

Grief is like being in pitch darkness. It's hard to navigate. Your hands are outstretched trying to grasp familiarity and your eyes widen trying to see anything that will give you hope. It’s a lost, hopeless and scary state. At times you can feel unseen and abandoned.

Grief is a part of us. We wear it like a cinder block backpack. Some days we are stronger and can move with it, some days less so and it can drown us. We don’t have to go under, though. The more space we allow for grief, for pain and suffering, the more we can help each other become stronger and to stand again.

Over the first year without Mum, the facets of grief started to change. Like I was unlocking new levels. Instead of immediately crumpling whenever I was reminded of or thought of her, I started to feel overwhelming gratitude for being gifted a mum who loved me so wholly and totally. A mum who told me every time she saw me that she was proud of me.

My happiness was her happiness. I could hear the delight in her voice when she would say ‘you sound so good baby!’ Knowing my well-being and happiness had fulfilled her was deeply moving. This life-changing love was simultaneously painful and incredible because I knew how fortunate I was to have had that in my life.

Soon, I moved into a stage of empowerment. It took a long time for me to face her house and belongings but when I finally did, I was touched by the many different things I found that showed her selfless care and thoughtfulness.

Beside her bed, she had made a little card with a prayer list of names of our family and friends. On her phone, she had set a reminder to message one of her friends every day. This friend was going through a particularly hard time, and she wanted her to know she was not alone. Next to Mum’s seat in the lounge she had a notepad with scribbled notes about the latest sports news so she could talk to my brother about them when they next spoke.

My mum taught me so much about kindness. She helped me to look for places where I could apply grace and help others. Though these precious acts of service were seemingly small, their impact was big. It was so empowering to me. Small acts really can create big ripples. I can honour Mum by striving to be more like her.

It's a cruel irony that I want to experience and share these new insights with her, but at the same time I couldn’t have gained them without her loss. I am no longer the same, but how could I be? She was every bit a part of me as any of my vital organs.

In this new world I live in, I have gained a kind of strength I didn’t know I was capable of. That’s not to say I don’t carry the grief with me or that some days aren’t harder than others, but I can find the good from the bad. I can ask with my full chest ‘show me how it gets better’. And I now have the light to see how it does.