Numbness of Bereavement

Dimension

The Numbness of Bereavement

Chapter One

IN MY WORK over a lifetime I have often heard it said that, in time, we overcome the sense of loss we feel when bereaved. I do not agree.

Bereavement is as unique as a fingerprint.

A lifetime has shown me that none of us actually overcomes the sense of loss of one dear to us; rather, I learn to deal with the loss, then I learn to cope with it, then I come to terms with it.

And, it seems, there is no set order. What might be step three for me, might be step one for another, and so on. Dealing with bereavement, for me, is subjective. I cannot apply a set formula. I have to take each instance step by step.

Oh, I know how you feel.

Yes, I feel just as you do.

Ah. But give it time. You’ll get over it … … …

Ah, yes. I know what you mean, but time heals …

… and many other well-intentioned expressions of sympathy.

There are people in my life’s history, whose loss I’m still getting over, and I’m talking decades, not just years. At times, I am annoyed with myself. Come on. Get a grip! The past is the past!! Then, if I change that noun ‘annoyed’ to ‘impatience’, I begin to focus again.

No matter what people say or write, no two bereavements are the same. They are as far apart and unique as fingerprints. Each bereavement is unique. I say again:

each bereavement is unique

I have a strong Christian faith, albeit, one that is very much outside the box.

My Christian faith does not give me all my answers. Much is up in the air. This is the case with every religion, every faith, and indeed of no religion, no faith.

Life goes on either side of the veil, a veil so flimsy that a loved one’s movement will be as a shimmering, a wisp against my face, a gentle squeeze on the shoulder from I know not where, and yet there's no one in the room with me!'

I have no means of saying how this is so, except that I am constantly aware within my own family, my own friends, that they are as alive today as when they were physically here. The closest I might be to an explanation is the awareness from deep with me.

I am no spiritualist. That does not interest me. But, and I’m quite sure this is the norm with everyone of us, there is the occasional moment… my name being called! Clear, distinct, out of the blue, very familial and warm.

And the room has a calmness about it that is almost ‘other world’ if I can put it like that.

Whenever this happens, it is always the same. No matter where I am. I do not tell people, because I suddenly have my peace and calm upturned by well-meaning - and sometimes even not-so-well-meaning - people, who insist on not only proving to me a purely scientific phenomenon but with both a sense of arrogance and of ridicule in and on their voice, and then the contemptuous giggle.

I say nothing, but I say within, Never mention when these things happen. Do not assume they are on the same wavelength. I’m on a hiding to nothing.

Chapter Two

In 2009 I wrote Helmand ... our armed forces in Afghanistan were discovering an uncomfortable and alarming indifference from many of the folks back home; not so much the military families; no. But from the wider public.

Being ex-air force reserve I felt for our armed forces; each day I would receive the MOD bulletins of men and women killed in action. One day, I sat down, and forty minutes later, unplanned, Helmand was complete, but there on the table in front of me.

It is a very long piece in fourteen parts - not the fashion of today's poetry as I’m forever being told - but Part V I'm often asked to repeat, and so I do so at the end of this reflection.

“Reader, please keep in mind, none of my poetry is the fashion of today’s poetry.

If longevity is not your thing, just quickly pass on. ”

— Kenneth Thomas Webb

My memories are the very tissue and fibre of my soul ... they are the cement in the bricks that hold my wall up, and it is right for me to revisit them in just the same way as my brother-in-law or his son visits the physical wall to render and repoint weakened areas. If I let go of my memories, then my wall will eventually tumble, leaving me with nothing.

Walking my life’s timeline, many of my memories are for me alone; the family know nothing about them, or of the people who make up those memories. They believe they do. Regarded very much 'as an open book' I'm inclined to sometimes want to say to the family, "oh, if you but knew!" But then that would be like the mud hitting the fan ... I don’t know. Isn’t life such a mess living in this cruel, frightful and judgmental, social media age!

Chapter Three

Hence my writing and this website.

This website is the garden of my mind. My physical garden created by my elder sister and family is something else.

In the garden of my mind, it is where I can go for a walk. It is where I can look the world in the face and say, please do not challenge me. It is where I can wander around my galleries, or sit in the movie theatre and watch old favourites. And look here, the moss and lichen, how it covers and provides life to a veritable host of little creatures, hurrying and scurrying about beneath. And I have been able to create my own galleries on this website, too. A couple are open to the public, but all of the others are my secret garden.

Yes! Life goes on after bereavement.

What did He say? In my Father's House are many mansions. I would not have told you if it were not so.[i]

I’ve seen where I will go. It took me a couple of years to realise what I was occasionally being shown. Always the same building. Stairways, and then eventually a room, the colours of which even now I do not have the width of vocabulary to describe. Every time, I find myself thinking, oh, I’m in this building again. Not quite sure why, keep walking, it is after all, very welcoming, and then suddenly… oh! Here! Wow. What a lovely room. Beyond dimensions. Not large. Not grandiose. Very peaceful.

Here, at last, can I grasp the concept of a house containing mansions … something that most truly exercised my odd-bod mind in secondary school’s religious education classes. I might be entirely wrong. But the glove fits my hand, so that is fine.

[i] John 14:2 KJV

Here is Part V.

For me, it truly struck home when I received an online comment from a soldier who had just completed his first tour in Helmand. Hell’s Corner. His message is one of those once-in-a-million written communications that, literally, are hearts in silent and earnest conversation and understanding with each other, and to that soldier I shall be eternally grateful.

Excerpt from Helmand

by

Kenneth Thomas Webb

(first written in my author name

Ian Bradley Marshall)

Part V

The wonderful 
moments too
.
Our Florence Nightingales 

holding a trembling hand, 

Oh God yeah,

They’re still all here... 

Whispering encouragement 

To a sightless mind,

Or to glazed expressions;
Or just soothing 
morphined weariness.

The most beautiful smiles 

Alighting the Soul
,
That serve to nourish
Next year and
 even
Sixty, Seventy and
Ninety 
years on.

The smiles,
The banter,
and laughter… …

Life goes on...


Wounded eyes

of silent warriors,
Stupefied

but resting now, 

Following all the ward activity ... 

Offering a silent prayer,

… the only part of them

left free to move …


Others staring blankly

At the ceiling,
Or 
transfixed by the

Rotor blades
Of the Chinook
,
Not seeing

The air conditioning system.

And a lone lance-corporal

Half here-half gone, 

Mutilated,

And wondering whether

He has the guts

To ask that Nurse out

When all this is over.



A whisper of encouragement

to rest,

As an unseen hand

From behind the veil 
Soothes his troubled mind

And gently holds his soul departing ...
 
… … … …

She turns!

And peers at the bed
,
Holding back

With iron determination; 

And in decades to come 

Children talk


… of the day Grandma

on Ward in the War

felt a movement 

feather-like

across her cheeks…

5 August 2025
All Rights Reserved


LIVERPOOL

© 2011 ~ 2025 Kenneth Thomas Webb

Helmand Written 2009
First published in Idle Thoughts September 2009
Republished in Meanderings 2011

This Dimension was written on 21 December 2020

And look here, the moss and lichen, how it covers and provides life to a veritable host of little creatures, hurrying and scurrying about beneath.