Walking to pause

Content advice: loss, grief, death

Hello again – and welcome to everyone who’s subscribed to The Writer’s Walk over the last few months.

You might have noticed that I haven’t sent out this newsletter for a while. It’s not because I’d forgotten about it or that I’d run out of ideas for walks and writing prompts – quite the opposite. I have a stack of ideas, notes and photos, plus a content plan that’ll see me through to the end of 2024, together with a schedule to keep me on that track.

This edition is to explain why I haven’t written for a few months and is in a slightly different format than usual.

I’ve agonised over writing it.

I’ve been concerned that it’s not what you signed up for and I was worried people might find it triggering – especially anyone who doesn’t know me personally, or know what’s being going on in my life this year.

But I also think it’s important to speak your truth, especially when there’s a chance it might help others who are experiencing the same thing and are possibly feeling alone. So this is my attempt to do that.

If you don’t want to read on, or if you choose to unsubscribe after reading, I completely understand. I wish you well and thank you for taking the time and interest to walk and write with me.

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Walking

My latest post was scheduled for Wednesday 15 February, at 12pm on the dot. I’d chosen the photos, I’d thought of the walking and writing prompts and I was partway through writing it up.

It was going to be called ‘Walking on wheels’ and was about what I learned from assisting my mum in her wheelchair when we went out together. I was going to share it with my mum and get her feedback before I hit ‘send’. But I never got to do that. At the beginning of February, following unsuccessful treatment for an infection, she suddenly became very sick. I raced back to Yorkshire and I was with her, holding her hand, as she died.

She was 92 and, in her own words, she’d “had a wonderful long life”.

My mum had been unwell for a long time but that doesn’t soften the loss. The death of a parent can leave you feeling unanchored – something I was aware of through my psychology studies when I studied dying and grief – so I expected to find it hard.

But I was not prepared for how harrowing it would be to take care of her funeral on my own – plus every other thing that’s followed, both little and large.

Thankfully, I have incredible friends who’ve been by my side – literally and virtually – throughout it all. I’m grateful for how they’ve carried me through the last few months, for amazing coworkers who understood and supported me when I had to step away from a dream job, and for all the words of wisdom my mum gave me. There are some wonderful humans out there.

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Writing

After my mum died, I knew I’d need time to take care of all the practical things, as well as take my first steps into grieving – so I stopped working.

Which means I stopped writing. I just couldn’t face it. Writing a brand proposition or a tone of voice guideline no longer seemed important. And when I opened the draft of my walking on wheels post it broke me to tears.

All I could manage was a sort of journalling, which I’d started while sitting by my mum’s bedside. A fever dream of thoughts and memories, fears and hopes. A drifting and unfolding of love. That journalling, the reflective nature of it, was essential for my wellbeing as I began to place my feet in a world without my mum. As was going for walks to dry my tears on the breeze.

Well, that’s not quite true. There was something else I needed to write: my mum’s eulogy. I didn't know where to start, so I looked through the emails we’d exchanged over the years, and I dug out a box of keepsakes where I found my mum’s notebook.

After I was born, my mum started writing children’s stories. It’s a small, handwritten collection, just for me. They’re perfect drafts. Not a single spelling mistake, grammar glitch or typo. Her precision was incredible.

I’d never thought about where I got my love of writing from, but I see now that it was from her. From the stories she wrote for me, which inspired me to start telling my own when I was five or six. To the day she gave me a thesaurus and these words of wisdom:

Here is a wealth of words. Use them wisely and try not to waste them!

My mum was my first reader and editor. She caught my mistakes and pointed them out to me with kindness. It was vital that the eulogy I wrote for her was true and good, and filled with grace and with love.

It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write.

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Drifting and unfolding

After writing my mum’s eulogy, I was struggling to find my way back to the page – either professionally as a copywriter or personally as a creative writer. I mean, where do you go after writing something like that?

So I decided to take a sabbatical for the summer. I had no plans. In fact, I had no sense of direction or any ideas for how to spend the time. I simply decided to drift and see how things unfolded.

I kept returning to David Whyte’s poem, Sometimes, and its opening lines:

Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest

So I went to a forest.

And I walked.

I walked because it was the only way I could think of being with my mum.

And because walking is the place where ideas happen and where the answers find you.

I walked because that’s how I heal.

I walked because that’s how I write.

And then I sat down on a fallen tree trunk and wrote my mum a letter.

And in writing that letter, I’ve found my own way to grieve. And I’m finding a new way to write.

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This has been a hard newsletter to write, which is why it’s waaayyyyy longer than it should be. So if you’ve made it this far – thank you 🙏🏻

Grief is something we’ll all experience and there’s no right or wrong way to it.

I think of it as a sea we carry inside us. Sometimes a wave breaches the reef and the sadness returns. Sometimes it’s calm, the sun warming us with memories and love. Over time, if you let the sea do its thing, you’ll find more calm days than rough. More love than loss.

If you’re experiencing loss and grief at the moment, please know that you’re not alone. Be kind to yourself. Lean on the people who’ll hold you.

Take an early morning walk.

Watch the sunrise.

Write about it.