Can it be a shared thing? Do we tap in whether willingly or unwillingly to a grief felt by nations or even by the world? It felt like it yesterday. It overwhelms me – that 11th hour, that 11th day. All that grief. A tsunami of grief. It isn’t mine. I wasn’t there. I haven’t lost anyone to a war, well not directly, but I still feel it, I still feel something. And the tears come. I see the imagery in my head. It is borrowed imagery from First and Second World War Pathe newsreels, from films, from literature. It is all I can focus on, oh and the radio stories I’ve heard from soldiers of today, or those I’ve listened to down the phone line as a Samaritan. Their grief is a known sadness, a true sadness, I am one step removed but I still weep, as I did at a neighbour’s funeral all those years ago. I am a sponge, I soak it up and emote, wholly taken over with compassion for another’s sorrow. Does it make me fraudulent? I hope not. I remember hugging her widow in the street, alarmed by what had come over me. He was so lost to it, so shell-shocked by her death, and left with a young daughter to care for alone. Sometimes all I can do is feel for others, be with them in their grief, standing alongside. Your grief story is my grief story. Always.
