Let's talk about grief, and how pretending to be fine isn't a sign of strength.

A picture of Meatloaf. Just coz.

Can we be real a second and talk about trauma? Because the blows just keep on coming, and I am trying to find the lessons in it all.

You will have seen the news this week that Paul Flack has died. He was Caroline’s beloved brother. Gorgeous, funny, charming and kind. Everyone loved Paul, no one more than Caroline. Their relationship was well beyond brother and sister; they were supremely close as friends. I keep imagining how she would be feeling right now. How hurt, how devastated, how shocked. The million layers of this entire thing are impossible to unfold.

I love the Flack family so deeply. I don’t understand how much one small group of people can take. And yet they must find a way to push through this. They will, of course, but right now the unbearable is all they can feel.

I won’t say any more about them because it’s not for me to talk about. But I just wanted to acknowledge here how much I love them; how heartbroken I am for Paul. How much I still, all the time, burst into tears over losing one of my favourite people in the world. My funniest friend. And how I will do what I can to keep the happy memories of Caroline and Paul alive, because they are legends and their lives were far from tragic.

On top of this, yesterday, I learned that someone else I have known since I was a kid has also died. It was a very lonely and sad experience of death and one that is hard to imagine. Another family devastated. ‘Snipers Ally’, as I have heard middle age be referred to many times, really is a bitch. It’s hard not to get into brace position and just wait, but we can’t do that; living life to the absolute full is truly the best option for us all.

I would like to write about my take on trauma and grief, because I think it’s good not to sweep it under the carpet. Almost every time I have written about loss, someone has told me it helped them. I have no professional take on this; I am just a person who has lost several people, and so reflectively I am able to look back on moments in life that I never thought I would recover from, but that I did.

I love you, and I really hope you’re OK. Keep reading if this is something you need today. If it isn’t, that’s perfectly OK.