How to answer that question after losing someone you love.

“How are you?” or “how are you going?” or “how’s things?” I’ve lost count how many times I’ve been asked. I really should have a good stock standard answer by now. Every time I’m asked I hesitate noticeably. I feel myself stop and check, yes… how am I? You don’t notice this question until you don’t have a good answer for it.

I was using “good, but it’s an adjusted scale” for a while. I stopped because I didn’t want to use the same line multiple times and I also wasn’t happy that the response was satisfactory anyway. “Good, but could slip into an aching sorrow at any point without warning, and stay there for anywhere from a moment to an hour or two” is possibly closer to the truth, but wordy. It’s also future focussed so doesn’t cover the equally ubiquitous “how have you been?” “I’m ok right now but on Tuesday couldn’t make a cup of coffee at home without breaking down, and generally can’t concentrate on much”. Neither response rings with the pithiness the social context desires. “TMI Dad” is what my son Harry would say if he heard me say this, just two words to convey what he’s thinking right there and then.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not chasing some l’esprit de l’escalier, I’m actually trying to understand how I feel. That’s what makes me stop and think each time the question is asked.

I want to be able to understand where the emotions come from. I know the obvious cause; Mary’s not here. But what triggers my emotions moment to moment? When sadness comes, it comes in waves. Sometimes ripples washing my toes, and often dumpers crashing and pummelling my body into the sand.

Where is my grief? I’m assuming it’s contained in the connections in my brain. What if a neurosurgeon undertook a highly specific procedure to re-route all the neuronal connections and removed all my memories of Mary, would I still feel grief? Is sadness only triggered by thoughts that contain memories? I don’t think so and for the record it’s not a thought experiment I’d undergo in reality anyway, the memories hold happiness too.

I’m figuring that 20 years of life with Mary has filled me with implicit memories and cues that I am completely and hopelessly unaware of and that maybe these explain at least some of the waves that come out of the blue, knocking me off my feet. Waves based on no particular thought.

I googled implicit memory and grief and came across an interesting paper. Interesting because it attempts to remove memory from the emotional equation by looking at impacts on patients with amnesia. The paper mentions a famous experiment where a severely amnesic patient was greeted each day by the doctor with a hand shake. On one occasion the doctor hides a pin in his palm and pricks the patient. On subsequent visits the patient does not shake hands even though she has no recollection of the pin pricking event. She recalls the emotion without understanding why.

It turns out patients with severe amnesia can feel emotions triggered by an event long after the explicit memory that triggered the emotion had been forgotten. One of the patients in this study reported often feeling emotions and having no idea where they came from and that she would go searching for the source.

So I wonder if that is where I am right now. Mary was always there in a way that both caused emotional waves of all shapes and sizes and let me know they were coming so I could catch and ride them. But without her I often can’t see them coming. I’m still swimming, and I’ve got a lot of energy yet, but it’s tiring and I don’t seem to be in the right place. Wherever I look the waves seem to be breaking more favourably than where I am. Nice rolling ways. I watch people catch them and race back out to do it again. I want to get to those spots again, they’re tantalisingly close, but I think I need to learn to surf and understand waves all over again before I can catch one and move out of this washing machine.

Maybe my how are you response could be “I’m just bobbing along”.

Don’t for a second think these words indicate annoyance at the question. I’m glad and so thankful that people ask. I will continue to return the favour by trying to feel comfortable in telling you, in that moment where I sit on the scale from “fucking crap” to “seem to be coping” to “really good right now actually”.

Maybe my best answer is “I don’t know, but I’m working on figuring it out”.