I would never choose it - Grieving during lockdown

02/18/21 • 14 min

‘In hindsight I can see perhaps it was good that I was forced to confront my grief in so unadulterated a manner, but it was so hard - I would never choose it!’ Tamlyn

TW: This story and the conversation which ensues includes mentions of grieving and death.

Tammy lost her mother a few weeks before the first UK lockdown. Even more, 8,000 miles separated them and returning to the UK was in itself a little miracle.

DISCUSSION:

We discuss how having to grieve in unusual situations (such as a global pandemic) can feel like imprisonment with grief.

We argue that in order to overcome grief, a level of grounding ourselves in daily routines and usual encounters with people can be essential. Tammy was deprived of this.

Our discussion concludes with our own positive experience of having overcome grief, or rather, having learned to live with the loss.

RECOMMENDATION

Our recommendation is Arvo Part's Stabat Mater, a meditative and wonderfully evocative piece of music.

Series 3 of My Beautiful Stories podcast offers a space for YOUR STORIES to be heard.

Support the show

‘In hindsight I can see perhaps it was good that I was forced to confront my grief in so unadulterated a manner, but it was so hard - I would never choose it!’ Tamlyn

TW: This story and the conversation which ensues includes mentions of grieving and death.

Tammy lost her mother a few weeks before the first UK lockdown. Even more, 8,000 miles separated them and returning to the UK was in itself a little miracle.

DISCUSSION:

We discuss how having to grieve in unusual situations (such as a global pandemic) can feel like imprisonment with grief.

We argue that in order to overcome grief, a level of grounding ourselves in daily routines and usual encounters with people can be essential. Tammy was deprived of this.

Our discussion concludes with our own positive experience of having overcome grief, or rather, having learned to live with the loss.

RECOMMENDATION

Our recommendation is Arvo Part's Stabat Mater, a meditative and wonderfully evocative piece of music.

Series 3 of My Beautiful Stories podcast offers a space for YOUR STORIES to be heard.

Support the show

Previous Episode

At the corner of fall and winter - on the meaning of home

‘and while she bends down to sit at the corner of fall and winter
her worries settle down with her

as they shake and shake

until the very last brown leaf drops.’ (@komorebi.koyama)

Today’s story comes in the shape of a poem, shared by Jennifer Koyama. Jennifer is a writer and poet who captures the fragility of the human nature in her writing.

DISCUSSION

We discuss the relationships between feelings and nature, and question whether this has dramatically changed during the last year. Are we going to nature with a different intention? Is our communion with nature becoming less unidimensional and more of a coming together, a coming towards each other with deeper understanding and need?

To listen to the episode, look for My Beautiful Stories in your podcast app. If you’ve enjoyed the episode, please share it with others.

RECOMMENDATION

Our recommendation is Louise Gluck’s The Wild Iris, a series of poems which link feelings and nature in a beautiful way.

Support the show

Next Episode

I walked away from the conversation feeling so much lightness - last episode of series 3

NEW PODCAST EPISODE: The last episode of series 3, which told Stories of 2020, comes from Vicky, Caylee and Therese.

DISCUSSION:

The episode centres on the power of memories. We speak of the narrative communion we felt whilst narrating other people’s memories and being thus made part of someone else’s life and perspective, particularly in times when meeting people was so much less possible.

This is the series we both most enjoyed producing and we leave it with a heavy heart. It is the series which offered the two of us a fast track lesson in humanity, with all its facets and all its beauty.

RECOMMENDATION:

We recommend Rashomon, a film which centres on the power of stories and storytelling.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

The series has closed, but we still accept stories of 2020. If possible, I would like to bring all the stories together, into something which can last through time. So please send your story

You can listen to all this series’ episodes on the app. Together, they constitute an uplifting narrative of last year.

The podcast is on a break in March. We are planning to return in April with a Planet Project special.

Lastly, THANK YOU to everyone who has shared stories, listened to the podcast, sent comments, messages and letters. For us this has been the most fulfilling series yet and it feels very emotional to close it today.

Series 3 of My Beautiful Stories podcast offered a space for YOUR STORIES to be heard. You can listen to the first story from our audience here.

Share your stories of 2020 with us and let's create a safe space where to keep a memento of what 2020 really was like - the beauty, the humanity, the heartbreak.

We invite a diversity of voices to join us in telling the stories of 2020.

If you have enjoyed this podcast episode, please do share with other people, please write a review or a rating.

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