Over the past few days we have experienced a collective grief with the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on 8 September 2022. Her reign was record breaking and will be a hard act to follow. For me, I have only known her as monarch and as a woman I’m incredibly grateful to have had her as a role model of what a woman in power can look like. Her great Christian faith has also been what I consider to be a good and faithful servant and a great testimony to having a close relationship with Jesus Christ.

We’ve all seen the quote by Her Majesty over the last few days and even quoted by Presidents: “Grief is the price we pay for Love”. Being human means we have emotions and grief can be one of the most difficult to process. There is no formula or exact road map or length of time for grief to pass.

I watched Her Majesty’s grandchildren stand vigil at her coffin on Saturday 17 September as part of her lying in state. I thought how much strength it took for them to do that. They’re grieving the loss of a grandmother. Private grief on public display. Prince William particularly looked to be digging really deep to contain his emotions. No matter what you think about the Royal Family and whether they are relevant or not, it takes incredible strength to do what they are doing during this time of their mourning. Their sense of duty and service is to be commended.

I’ve been feeling quite tearful throughout this time. The passing of HM Queen Elizabeth has been quite a shock to the nation. Yes, she was 96 and so her remaining time was certainly short but to have seen her carrying out her constitutional duties just 2 days before her death and then to hear she had passed was unexpected. She was a stalwart of our nation for more than just the 70 years that she sat on the throne. An icon to many generations.

And so with the stirring of so many emotions, I’ve been working on trying to look at these emotions with new curiosity; trying to go that little bit deeper than the obvious sad. It’s also got me thinking about when I lost my own grandparents and others close to me. I was 16 when my paternal grandfather died. I was living in South Africa at the time and he and my grandmother were in Northern Ireland. I didn’t really know my grandparents very well. They would come to visit sure, but they lived so far away and when they came to visit it was more about what they were bringing us than spending time with them. I was a teenager too so didn’t really grasp the importance of getting to know older generations. I broke off contact with my paternal grandmother in 2007/08 and we weren’t particularly close.

When my maternal grandmother passed away in 2003, I was 23 and it was just a few days before a university exam. My parents tried to keep it from me which made her passing all the worse for me. I had had time to get to know her and my maternal grandfather a bit more when I was 19 on my gap year and in 2003 we were planning to all be in the UK for a family Christmas. Sadly, that didn’t happen with her passing and I started a new job so couldn’t have leave. When I moved back to the UK in 2005 I spent the first year in Northern Ireland and got to spend a good bit of time with my maternal grandfather. He was a true gent with the best sense of humour. And he was old school always asking me if I had “found a boy yet” to which I would tell him I didn’t want a boy, I wanted a man (and I’ve still not found him yet). I was on an overseas holiday to the US when he passed away. He had been through quite a bit health wise and had started showing signs of dementia so it was a bittersweet passing as I hadn’t had the chance to see him one last time but also knew he was in a better place and back with my Nana.

The personal loss I still feel the hardest is of a dear family friend who was like a father to me. He had battled cancer for about a year. I got the message of his passing as I landed in Kenya for my Kilimanjaro challenge. He was one of the inspirations for taking on the challenge so it made the climb even more memorable. I still find myself choked up when I think about him and it’s 2 and a half years later.

But grief isn’t just about the loss of a person. For those of us in the chronic illness community grief is a daily emotion we deal with. We grieve the loss of our healthy selves, our pre-illness selves. Then we grieve what we miss out on – social engagements, adventures, new experiences. We watch things like the lying in state of Her Majesty or other occasions wishing we could take part. Thankfully things are being made more accessible for people with disabilities (or as I prefer to think of it – differently abled).

All that said, remember that grief is a personal experience. Don’t let how others are expressing their grief make you feel there is something wrong with you or something to be ashamed about. Work through it in a way that works for you BUT work through it. Like with any other emotion suppressing it will not make it go away, it will just fester and then when it surfaces it will be like a pressurised canister exploding. Allow yourself the time to feel all you need to feel and reach out for help if you need it. There is no shame in that. It takes great strength to ask for help – don’t forget that.