The Things We Carry Quietly

Song playing: A Downland Suite – Minuet, Sinfonia of London, John Wilson

I have always loved marking a moment like this. It takes me back to when we used to write letters—before mobile phones, before everything was instant. You would note the time, the day, what was playing, and somehow it made the moment feel real. Held.

The truth is, the last few weeks have been a storm.

The kind that feels like it arrives out of nowhere. Although, if you know what to look for, there are always signs. A shift in the air. A pressure you cannot quite place. In avalanches, they call it a “whumpfing” sound—the ground hollowing beneath your feet before anything collapses. I think I felt it. I just did not understand it.

I was in Switzerland, living a trip I had imagined for years, when something small cracked everything open. A scene on television—an actor holding grief with such truth it reached straight through me. And suddenly, I felt it. A deep, overwhelming ache. So precise it felt like it had been waiting.

My mind went straight to someone I love—someone woven into the fabric of my life. And I began calling out, through tears I did not recognise. It was shock, fear, and a grief that felt both unfamiliar and somehow already known.

A few nights before, I had a dream. I was in my kitchen, and there were women gathered around someone I love. Too many. Too close. They had taken over the space. She looked distant, almost weightless—as though she was there and not. I questioned them, but something in me resisted.

Upstairs, I found someone else I had loved—strong, steady, certain. He told me clearly, “Get them out. You cannot trust them. Close the door.” When I returned, the house had changed. It had expanded, become something I did not recognise, and they had invited more people in. I stood there and said no. You are taking over. Leave.

The next morning, I could not settle. I slowed down, had breakfast, and walked to a small church. Then the call came. Paramedics. And everything that had been beneath the surface broke through.

I got the next flight home.

At the hospital, I saw someone I love in a state I was not prepared for—fragile, dehydrated, altered. It is a strange thing to witness someone you know so deeply and not recognise them at all. We waited 17 hours for a ward. Seventeen hours of holding, managing, containing.

Then everything else seemed to unravel.

I went home briefly to reset, and the walls were soaked. Water was coming in. The roof—recently done, promised, guaranteed—had failed. Rain was hammering down, calls went unanswered, and it felt like everything was giving way at once. Above me, around me, inside me.

But at the centre of it all was one thing: her.

Everything else became background. Because when something truly matters, everything rearranges itself around it.

The days blurred. Even the dog became unwell, stress moving through her body too. Everything felt like it was about to boil over. She had pneumonia, then improved, then the body told a different story—low potassium, a racing heart, flu.

I stayed. Over 72 hours. Holding the line between what was and what might be.

One night, she told me how well I had always taken care of her. She did not say it gently—she pushed the words out as though they needed to land. She felt loved. She felt cared for. And in that moment, everything became very simple. That was enough.

Time changed in that space. Watching television, sleeping beside a hospital bed, measuring out food, water, presence. Trying to hold something human inside something clinical. I did not look after myself. There is no system for that. You just keep going.

She died after the first full blood moon.

The day after, someone came to fix the roof. Not the one who had made promises—someone new. A company called Hazel Grave Roofing. The name caught me. How certain words arrive exactly when they are meant to.

He fixed what had been letting everything in.

And it felt like something had shifted. As though what had been building—pressure, grief, energy—had finally been released. The storm was beginning to clear.

I thought I was coping. I thought I was strong.

Until someone said to me, “You were wearing grief.”

And I realised grief does not just live inside you. It sits on you. Moves with you. Speaks through you, even when you think you are holding it together.

Another person said, “You are so strong.”

And I realised something important. Strength is a gift—but so is softness. So is allowing yourself to feel what is actually there, rather than hardening against it.

I do not want to close off from this. I want to be able to feel it as it comes.

Because grief does not just look like sadness. It shows up in strange ways—in moments of forgetting, in your body freezing, in waves that arrive without warning.

Last week, I forgot. For a moment, I thought I needed to go and visit. Then I remembered I did not need to anymore. The body remembers before the mind catches up.

So I moved.

I put music on and danced in the kitchen. Not to escape, but to move through it. To remind myself I was still here.

I went outside. Walked the dog. Felt the sun. Ate something nourishing. Small things, but they mattered.

If I have learned anything, it is this: you cannot always control what hits you, but you can choose how you meet it.

For me, that means staying open. Softening. Letting myself feel, even when it is uncomfortable.

Because when everything is stripped back, what remains is simple.

Love. Presence. The moments you shared.

And those are things nothing can buy.

It may sound strange, but I feel grateful. Grateful that I knew that kind of love. That kind of connection.

To my loved one—

I will see you in my dreams.