Anyone who has ever stubbed their toe off of a sharp corner knows this simple truth:

There is a big difference between describing a stubbed toe, and the real experience of having stubbed a toe.

And so it is with grief.

If we (hopefully) live long enough, we will all have to deal with the awful reality of grief. The reality of knowing the loss of someone who we have loved, of someone who was an important part of our lives.

To date, I have had to face this reality on three occasions.

In June 1995 I was at home and my mam complained about pins and needles in her legs. She tried a few things – one of which was a hot bath to ease her muscles. Nothing worked, and when dad came home he took her straight to the doctor.

The doctor, to his credit, saw mam trying to get out of the car and told them to go straight to hospital. The initial diagnosis that Friday evening was of a stroke. However, on Monday evening a more thorough scan and diagnosis gave us the terrible news that mam had a brain tumour, inoperable. In the space of a few days we went from mam being healthy to her being told she was going to die.

The next months were a whirlwind, a blur. We chased every theory and quack in the vain hope of something that would hold back the tide, that would deny the inevitable, that would save her life.

Part of that journey was a pilgrimage to Lourdes.

Mam travelled to Lourdes in search of a cure, but that’s not what she received – she went there on a wheelchair, and came back on a stretcher. Instead there was a different type of cure.

You see, up until that point our house was focused on fighting the cancer – on pushing back. After Lourdes our house became a place to make mam comfortable, it became a place where we had accepted her ultimate diagnosis, and now aimed to preserve her dignity and her peace.

Lourdes did provide a type of cure – just not the type that we had anticipated.

On 15th September mam died. Hard to believe that that is now almost 30 years ago.

In the following years we, each of us, tried to deal with the grief in our own different ways. As is common with children who have lost a parent, we feared for dad.

I have a clear memory of one day being at a choral event in Cork and seeing a woman who had similar hair and dress style as mam. I was left breathless with the shock and reviving of her memory.

Weirdly, this is the natural way of things. If we are lucky, we get to bury our parents. There is something wrong with the world if it’s the other way around.

In 2018 it was the other way around.

On a cold February morning we got the terrible news that the body of my younger brother had been found – he had died of a heart attack.

Unlike mam’s death 23 years earlier, we had no warning, no time to prepare. Finbar was, it seemed, fit and healthy. He was only 46 and full of life.

I can honestly say that it was a full 2 years before I “got over” his death. In reality I never fully got over it, and thinking about the unfairness of such an early death will still make me angry and cry. Simply put – I still miss my brother, he was cool.

Grief is complex, deep, and varied. We use a lot of different theories and analogies to explain it, but the simple fact is that it hurts. A lot.

I regularly refer to the Kubler-Ross stages of Grief. It provides a framework that allows us to understand some of what we’re going through. (And yes, I know that some have questions around how accurate the stages are)

In 2023 my dad died at the age of 92. His death brought more of an existential aspect to grief. Both of my parents are now gone, along with my younger brother. This kind of thing really makes you think about your own morality.

Dad’s death and Finbar’s have affected me in totally different ways. While Finbar was in apparent full health, dad had suffered in his final years. In a way, I grieved the man I knew as my father as he faded in front of me.

When supporting someone who is grieving, perspective is important. Just because I have been through grief does not mean I truly get what another person is going through now. I’m describing a stubbed toe to someone who has just suffered from a stubbed toe.

Unlike a stubbed toe, however, grief takes a very long time to process. This is not something that can be rushed or forced. Our feelings are our feelings, no matter how inconvenient.

To contradict the poet – sometimes you do need to go gentle.

If you are dealing with grief talk to someone, and allow the myriad of emotions to happen. Sometimes it’s OK to not be OK.

A final note – this reading of Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle” is incredible. Take a moment for yourself, and do be gentle with yourself.