The body remembers

When grief shows up physically (and ways to navigate it)

Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

Earlier this month I found myself experiencing seemingly unexplainable muscle tension.

Except it wasn’t unexplainable. It was very familiar.

February is a bit of a heavy month for me (and this year I feel it’s been compounded by heart-shattering world events as well as those closer to home).

It’s a strange feeling, because on one hand it’s the time when we usually see the beginnings of spring (which in the Chinese lunar calendar begins in early February) – the season of rebirth.

But it’s a time I associate with death.

My mother died unexpectedly in February four years ago.

In 2020 just as the spring blossoms were appearing, I was consumed with fresh grief, death admin and funeral plans. When I looked up the nation was told we had to stay at home and the first Covid lockdown began.

The usual advice offered at times of bereavement like ‘get out and see friends’ wasn’t possible then.

Living alone meant feeling even more isolated in those first few weeks of lockdown when my mother had only just been laid to rest.

The first few months were especially hard. Four years on I thought it might feel easier. When people say that time is a healer, I don’t really believe that. (On a related note, I don’t think that we have even begun to process the collective grief brought by the Covid-19 pandemic.)

There comes a point when you realise you will never “get over” the death of a loved one, that life has changed forever and there will always be a melancholy there which looms larger at some times than others.

No. You don’t “get over it”. You find ways to live alongside it.

“I’ve never been the same since my brother died. There’s a melancholy in me that never goes away. I’m 50% happy and 50% sad at any given moment. And the only advice I can give people for when you lose someone like that is you won’t ever get over it. And the more you know that and embrace it, the better off you are. I don’t want to forget my brother and I don’t want to forget what it felt like when he died, because he deserves it – that’s how important he was to me.” – Billy Bob Thornton

Even if I wanted to forget, my body doesn’t. Each year since 2020, the same muscle tension appears at the same time. The body remembers.