A Meal at the Grief Table

They say the best way to learn is through experience. There is one thing that I wish we didn’t have to learn about through experience – that’s grief. I wish there was a manual I could read and it would all make logical sense. It would tell me how to feel, what comes next and the ‘right’ thing to say. But there isn’t.

I don’t want to have to deal with this. It seems unfair. Why me? Hang on, I’m not even the one who’s dying. What right do I have to ask, ‘why me’? And so, the questions go!

Watching someone dying is a little like sitting down to a degustation meal at the grief table. You’re served bite size morsels of the full menu of life. You start with something light that teases your emotions slightly. There are a few refresher courses served – those moments when you feel a little relief from the painful emotions with a slight improvement or some reasonable test results. But with that comes that awful ice cream headache, where you consumed the news too fast and the reality of the situation hits a nerve that shoots constant pain through to your deepest core. And, ultimately as much as you don’t want to face the reality, any meal has an end point.

My dad has metastatic breast cancer. Sounds weird, doesn’t it? Almost like it’s a menu item as opposed to the horrifying reality that eats away at his fit body and his strong spirit. We have always known he is special, and that was proven when he had to be one of the small percentage of men (less than 1% chance) who gets breast cancer. It turns out, our whole family is pretty special in the breast cancer stakes. My sister was the ‘fall guy’ for discovering that we are all carriers of the BRCA-1 gene mutation, as she fought with breast cancer as a 30-year mum of three kids. Metastatic means the original breast cancer (even after removal of breast tissue, chemotherapy and radiotherapy) has migrated and taken up residence in his lungs, brain, bones and other areas. This raw deal means he is served with a more limited time than he naturally should be. 

First course – dealing with the unknown

The grand chef of life makes your tastebuds stand on end. You’ve had terrible news that cancer has returned with a vengeance and your every sense is heightened.

I’m scared but hopeful. I’m angry but empathetic. I’m positive but have a nagging feeling that lives in the pit of my stomach. I believe in karma but not sure about miracles (I do secretly hope, wish and dream for a miracle). More than anything, I’m filled with expectation of what is to come. Will it be able to stomach it? Will I be able to withstand the spice of it all? Will it be a melt in the mouth moment or leave a completely bad taste in my mouth?

At first, the courses are spread out and are manageable chunks. The progression of cancer is slow and as each new course comes, you need to readjust your palette.

Can I deal with this? I just want it to stop, so I can think. I want to stop crying at the drop of a hat. I want to answer my phone without thinking it will be bad news. I have to learn to accept the person I knew as my dad is not necessarily the same.

His spirit is like fine cutlery, still sharp and able to get the job done but there is a slightly tarnished hue to him. As the meal progresses the courses seem to speed up. Your plate already seems full, but the blows keep coming and the food is piled high, making you feel sick.

You know that there are multiple delicious dishes in your everyday life for you to enjoy. You try to continue functioning normally. You smile politely, but everything is rather tasteless. You find it difficult to fathom that other people can go on normally.

How can I act normal? I feel guilty for having fun.

The share platter – it’s the course where the oysters give you grief.

You need pearls of wisdom but all you have in front of you are questionable, mushy bodies. It’s the time when important questions need answers. You decide whether it’s best to chew or swallow. Should you resuscitate if there is cardiac arrest? Should you intubate? It doesn’t matter whether you decide to chew on the information or swiftly swallow it whole, it remains as a gurgling bolus of emotions stuck in your throat, unable to swallow, yet scared you’ll choke.

Disgust, guilt, what right do I have to make this decision? Should I decide for what I want? I want my dad. Or, should I do what dad would want? Or, should I do what’s best for my dad for his quality of life? These swirling mash of questions, emotion, logic, disbelief, anger battling it out in the back of my throat.

And where is the accompanying wine to all these tasters of grief?

Well, in true form to my dad. The most appropriate accompaniment would be beer. It serves as the emotional gauge throughout. If poured carefully, your emotions are contained within the icy cold schooner glass. Where the sediments of life fall to the bottom, forgotten until you reach that point. The golden lager is the emotion just below the surface that constantly bubbles to the top. The head of the beer is where everything builds, until it can no longer be contained. It’s froth sometimes feels like bubbles that rob you of your breath, making you choke on your feelings. At other times, the froth of emotions can dribble over the side of the glass, smearing your thoughts slowly and constantly.

Then dessert arrives – It’s supposed to be the sweet treat to finalise your meal

You hear the news ‘it’s close to weeks’ and feel the sickly sweetness of dessert results in a dizzy plummet of your emotions.

It’s hard to focus, I’m angry – how dare they say that. They don’t know my dad, they don’t know what they’re talking about, he’s still fighting. My thoughts become irrational. I’m grumpy and mean. How dare my work expects replies to emails. How dare my kids need to eat dinner. How dare my husband comforts me with a hug. Dessert is laced with guilt and caked in grief, what’s wrong with me?

Tears of fear, tears for how my dad feels, the pain he’s in, the frustration he experiences, the confusion we play along with. Just like you can have warm and cold sensations in your mouth, each salty tear that falls in aching sadness is matched with tender tears of happy memories.

All through this – mum sits by our side at the grief table, constantly excusing herself to care for my dad. She cares tirelessly. She dedicates 100 percent of her life to dad. She is amazingly strong, loving and patient. She swallows her worry, the grief bloats her. She questions her hope, denies reality and never gives up. She is the pudding in this whole scenario, keeps us all together with a warm consistency.

At the end, all that is left is cheese – It seems you experience everything like it is curdled.

The anger tainted questions keep arising – why should that bad person get to live and my dad die? It’s a mortifying paradox to think life is a tradable commodity. You’re drained of happiness; you’re pressed to find the bright side; and rinsed of all that seems fair. You start to think that perhaps, you’re the cracker to accompany the platter of hard, soft, blue and smelly fragments. It feels like you have a bit of every sensation on your plate.

Moments of chewy goodness that leave a fleeting flavour of ‘things aren’t that bad’, I can take strength from this. Then times when you think this is all too savoury, it’s clogging my system and leaving a feeling of heaviness in the pit of my tummy. That blue feeling that makes me wish I had never been served this dish in life. Ultimately, as much as there are times that life is tasty, it also just purely stinks!

We are all still here. Sitting at this table of grief. We refuse to leave. We refuse to give up hope. We are swirling the sediments of life in the bottom of our beer and savouring every morsel we have left.

Take care my friends.

xk