By Becca Healy

Following on from a recent break-up, Becca reflects on the parallels and divergencies of heartbreak from the ending of romantic relationships and grief from the bereavement of her Mother.

Photo of flowers in Brixton in spring by Becca Healy

All heartbreak is pain. The purest pain there is. It’s knots in the depths, the middle and pits of the body. Only worsened when underpinned by grief. The snatched injustice of a life removed. The deep knowing of the cyclical nature of life and death only worsening the reality we all have to face one day: our own mortality.

Bereavement is a wound that never heals. It’s a cut, scalded repeatedly as each life event ensues. It’s a torture that aches and separates you from those who grieve and those who do not. We paradoxically cry out for connection from others who can hold us through this pain. But our immense pain threshold is nicely withheld from view, by a society that stresses avoidance of the facts and feelings of loss.

The heartbroken start the day as the bereaved do, trying to keep-on-keeping-on with the psychological stain of loss burning their insides. Newness ensues and patterns emerge, unbeknownst to the former lover and the person who is dead. For those who haven’t grieved, heartbreak is a taste of grief.

But heartbreak is legitimised by society, a lesson we all are encouraged to learn. There are the words to describe it. There are songs, TV shows, endless books. It is right in view. Heartbreak and grief share a similar lesson: to love truly, we have to accept loss. That loss hurts. Some grievers love harder because of this truth. Others shy away, knowing the reality of that unbearable pain.

We often fantasise about the good times and the potential reuniting with our once lover. In grief, there is no reuniting. There is no crossing the road to avoid their eyes. There’s no sitting at the bus-stop or waiting at a train station and accidentally crossing paths. There’s no staring at an Instagram page, looking at the photos of our former flame with people we know nothing about, doing things we’ve never heard of.

Grief is the mixing-up. An underpinning to all emotions after the loss. It never goes away. Plenty of people use analogies to make it easier. One I favour likens grief to a hole in the garden. As time goes on, other plants grow around it. However, it is always there primed and ready to catch you.

Grief is facing an ending. An ending we had no control over. We can never control another’s behaviour, but we all, however subconsciously, sign up to the relationships we are in.

We never signed up to death, but it is the only fact of our lives that we know to be true. People navigate life through learning from heartbreak and the loss that ensues. Bereavement carries the biggest lesson there is. There is no pain like grief from the death of a loved one. So be kind and generous with your heart. You only get one.

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