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Grief has a funny way of catching up to you
In this piece I will be speaking from personal experience, I am no expert but I am an expert on how grief has affected me over the years.
So here goes.
The dictionary definition of grief is ‘very great sadness, especially at the death of someone’ and that’s all it is. Being drowned in sorrow because someone you knew is no longer here. I never expected to experience grief at such a young age, I assumed that the only time I’d have to deal with it was when my pet goldfish died. I didn’t understand the concept of death then, because I was only about seven but I was genuinely devastated. I let out the most dramatic tears and forced my dad to bury the poor fish in our garden as I held the most solemn funeral a seven-year-old could.
That being said, I wasn’t unfamiliar with death. I felt like I was surrounded by death except it hadn’t personally greeted me. From a young age, I remember vividly my parents discussing the passing of old relatives and unfortunately close friends. I was always uncomfortable with other people’s grief because I couldn’t quite understand it, I thought in order to console someone you had to feel and replicate their feelings but I never could, so I felt bad. However, there was one particular passing that made me mirror everyone else’s feelings. This was the passing of my mum’s close friend just after I was born. It was this, that made me realise that you could mourn and grieve someone you didn’t really know. My theory is that as an infant I absorbed all of my mum’s sadness for her friend and now I feel it when she reminisces. As well as that I am grieving the missed opportunity of knowing someone my family speaks so fondly of, I like to think we would’ve been great friends if circumstances were different.
Insert funny and innocent anecdote: When I was in year 5 I was given the word funeral in my spelling test and due to my poor reading skills and unfamiliarity I pronounced it ‘fun-eral’ – the irony!
Death seemed to tip-toe closer to me as time went on, but it came in like a bulldozer in 2013 when I was 10. I remember watching my maternal granddad George, mourn the loss of one of his best friends, someone he grew up with in Jamaica, at this point I could put into perspective the gravity of losing a dear friend because I understood the love and devotion one has for their companions. But as a family, we also grieved the wellness of my grandma, as her health declined and her mind was swept up in the chaos of dementia. It was hard to understand at ten years old but I had such a close relationship with both of them, that I didn’t need to understand to feel what they felt. But as I said before death, came down like a tonne of bricks. My paternal granddad Nelson’s, health had also rapidly declined that year too. I wasn’t as close to my granddad but I missed his antics and I especially missed his smile, I think because his passing was expected I wasn’t swallowed whole by grief but the intrigue of experiencing a death in the family definitely sucked me in. Clearly, god or a higher being thought I needed to experience some proper gut-wrenching and unexpected death, so hit me with a double whammy. Three weeks after my granddad Nelson passed away my granddad George followed suit. It was the by far the most tragic death I have experienced to date and I don’t wish that kind of grief on my worst enemy. My 77-year-old Granddad was my best friend and I lost him. That year, 2013 into 2014 was the saddest year of my life, I couldn’t fathom what I had just experienced and cried heavily on every anniversary willing my beloved grandfather to return. And with that, I became totally familiar with death and its companions.
I managed to make it seven years unscathed by the claws of death, I did hear about a few that definitely left a few hairline cracks on my heart but I hadn’t experienced any close to home until 2020. I know we’re all familiar with the woes that 2020 brought and it’s safe to say we all felt an abundance of grief. We grieved some incredibly tragic celebrity deaths as a collective and lost our loved ones, but we also grieved the loss of two whole years. My mum tends to say that I lost my chance to experience my late teens fully as I turned 17 and 18 during a national lockdown, like many people across the world. I couldn’t celebrate either birthday with people outside of my household, however, my 17th was the most heartbreaking. That year I shared my birthday with mother’s day and the eve of lockdown restrictions. The restrictions meant I couldn’t see my grandma gem who had dementia as I was underage and could possibly spread infection. This was my last chance to see my grandma but that was taken away from me as she passed away in May 2020. Much like granddad Nelson’s passing, I expected to lose grandma Gem at some point in my life but I still experienced a feeling of utter shock when it happened. This was hard to grapple with because I had spent a huge portion of my formative years helping to look after my grandma and then I had to suddenly continue with normal life but that was my normal life. And so I grieved the loss of routine (especially during the pandemic) and what I thought was normal.
I hope you found this regurgitation of my experiences with grief interesting. I’d be more informative but I want you to read something that is real and shows how grief is a spectrum, it affects everyone differently. Over time the heaviness gets lighter but you never get over the people you’ve lost, they’ll live in your heart and memories until you meet them again.
15/09/22
Morocco, Cuba, St Lucia and Safiya walk into a bar
I love travelling, and as an inner city black Caribbean family, my parents ensured that my sisters and I explored somewhere new at least every summer. This was a privilege and I’ll forever be grateful for the experiences they gave me, however because I seem to be a walking sketch show. Holidays never seem to be quite smooth sailing (there’s always turbulence) and here’s why…
Coming in third place is Morocco…
*Disclaimer* Morocco is a beautiful country and Marrakech is an even more beautiful city, the only downfall is the dreadful heat! However, before I share what I consider the dogfight between the sun and I, I will share some other weird and wonderful things that happened whilst vacationing in Marrakech. Plainly speaking, a Moroccan man attempted to buy me in exchange for a Camel, bargaining with my Dad and his reasoning behind this formidable purchase was that I looked like a rasta! I had braids, braids guys, braids! I was flattered at first, thinking it was my charming good looks that sealed the deal but that was a step too far, obviously he was joking (I hope!) – What if he’s written multiple complaints to Hermes for failing to deliver his package from four years ago?!
Anyways, the second half of this holiday was filled with some considerable disarray. Picture this, a country with a hellfire sun, heat from the Sahara desert paired with fake plastic Birkenstocks bought from a small Dalston shop, you can imagine what the outcome was but I’ll spell it out for you. My shoes melted. Piece by piece until no shoe was left and my Dad had to carry me back to the Riad, which still haunts us to this day. All that said, Morocco was a great country.
Coming in second, next up Cuba…
Like Morocco, I have to make clear that Cuba is a truly fascinating country. Considering their history, it is easy for us in the west to scratch it off of our list of places to visit but as they say ‘don’t knock it till you’ve tried it’. Arriving in Cuba was like stepping into the 1950s with the old town cars and the skeleton of Americanised infrastructure, this novel aspect is not only what makes the country so special it’s definitely the people as well. I highly recommend it, but I digress, Cuba is on this list for a reason.
The primary reason being, its torrential rainfall and the secondary being my awfully cheap flip flops (I know, not again Safiya- didn’t Morocco teach you anything). We had only been in Havana (the country’s capital) for a few hours, when as we checked into our hotel, a tropical storm was brewing. We thought nothing of it and proceeded to familiarise ourselves with the rooftop pool- the rain got heavier. This is when disaster struck, in a panicked frenzy we all ran for shelter however, I, being the calamity that I am, did not do that so well. The long and short of it is that my flip flops betrayed me (again!) and I did a banana peel slip without the banana peel, hit my head on the tiled floor and almost drowned in a foot deep puddle. Despite this very near-death experience, Cuba was the best place I’ve ever visited and I hope to go back in the future.
And in first place is my beloved St Lucia…
This specific Island has a special place in my heart as I am half St Lucian and half Jamaican, a Jalucian so to speak. Having one set of grandparents from a larger West Indian Island and the others from a smaller island does create a sort of rivalry between my St Lucian Father and Jamaican Mother, with my sisters and I trapped in the middle. However, much to my Mum’s dismay, I have a lot more stories to tell about St Lucia than I do Jamaica, but I do think Jamaica needs to be discussed on a separate occasion because that was definitely an experience.
Nevertheless, St Lucia is loaded with a lot more ridiculousness. The first time I went to St Lucia was when I was five, we went for my Uncle’s wedding and I was a bridesmaid. The holiday was amazing, many hilarious happenings for example me being traumatised by an American boy with his t-shirt and goggles over his face imitating an alien and of course five-year-old Safiya was terrified, screamed and used her Uncle, the soon to be groom, as a climbing frame for safety. Other than that, my cousin downing a cheeseburger in less than a minute. All of these experiences possess a level of hilarity but one that beats them all was visiting my Great Uncle’s house. The house itself was typical of the Caribbean countryside but what happened inside the house was something truly remarkable. My cousin and I decided to visit the bathroom, as you do. At this point everything seemed normal until a young man pulled back the shower curtain and was casually taking a shower. I’m sure you’re wondering who this young man was, me too. Needless to say, my cousin and I escaped the awkwardness, barely laughing as we ran away.
Ten years later, the whole family returned to St Lucia for a relaxing holiday but surprise, surprise… something crazy happened. We took a wonderful excursion to Soufriere, (the Sulphur springs), the local volcano in St Lucia. It was a warm day, typical of a tropical island and I was dressed appropriately for the activities ahead and assumed I ate and drank enough for the day, but clearly not! As our tour guide took us up the side of the volcano, I started to feel a little bit lightheaded, but I wasn’t alarmed. I’m not accustomed to hot weather (you know UK tings) therefore I’m used to this sort of reaction when the temperature rises. Luckily, we had a short break at a viewing point to see the bubbling sulphur from the volcano, a great opportunity to take a family photo, right? Wrong! Things took a strange turn from here, remember when I said I felt a bit lightheaded? Well, I tried to rest my head on my sister’s shoulder but she shrugged me off and before I knew it I was on the ground surrounded by my family. I blacked out. Fainted. Next to a volcano. In St Lucia! And the crazy part is that I woke up laughing and a relative made me drink from a random bottle of water (this was in 2018 but like eww corona). In spite of being the butt of the joke for the rest of the holiday I had a blast.
I consider this series of misfortunate events as an opportunity for character building, they work as great icebreakers in awkward social settings.. especially post pandemic when my social skills are at zero. All of these crazy holiday experiences have individually shaped my personality today. And I’ll leave you with this, if you ever visit any of these places remember to bring proper footwear and always stay hydrated, please learn from my mistakes.
05/07/21
