The Quiet Shape of Grief

Last week, a close relative died suddenly. There was no warning. One moment they were alive, the next they were gone.

The news came by telephone. The words were simple and direct but, as ever, did not ring true. Sudden death always feels somewhat impossible.

In the days since, I have noticed something new in myself. The grief was there, certainly, but it felt different this time. It did not demand the same urgency it once had. It was not a tearing open of the world. Rather, it was quiet.

Perhaps it is simply that one death brings to mind another, or because it is October, but I found myself remembering the death of Alastair. We met fifteen years ago, when we began working together on a technology project called Beluga. He became both a creative partner and one of the most important people in my life. Alastair died in October 2013. It still feels close. At the time, I wrote that grief does not lessen; it is life that grows. I described a circle containing all that we have experienced and all that we are. When someone we love dies, everything inside the circle changes. Over time, life adds new experiences, new people, and new memories. The circle grows wider, and the proportion of it that holds the pain becomes smaller.

The metaphor has stayed with me. Each time I lose someone, I return to it, testing whether it still feels true. And it does, though the circle itself has changed shape.

His death changed everything for me, both personally and professionally. When Alastair died, I said only that he had died suddenly. That was true, but it was not the whole truth. He took his own life. I did not want to write those words then. I wanted to protect his memory. I did not want his death to overshadow his life. I wanted people to know him for his brilliance, his kindness, his wit, his ideas. I wanted them to understand that Beluga, the project we built together, was born from his genius.

Grief following suicide is different. It is, of course, complicated by confusion and by the endless search for reasons.

I have now reached an age where grief feels different. It is still sad, but less consuming. Perhaps it is simply that the circle has grown so wide that I can now see each loss in relation to the others. The deaths do not replace one another, but they sit side by side, each part of the same expanding pattern.

When I think of Alastair now, I think less of his death and more of the time we had. I can still see him, sitting in a London club, talking excitedly about his plans for Beluga. I hear his voice, his laughter, and feel his embrace. The memory no longer hurts in the same way. It is simply there, part of the circle.

The recent bereavement has reminded me that grief never leaves. It just changes its form. Where once it was a storm, it has become a quiet sea. Where once it was something to endure, it has become something to observe.

On Friday evening, I sat alone in the garden, surrounded by newly fallen leaves and the increasing gold of autumn. The air was still, and the light was fading. I found myself noticing how this new loss was being absorbed, and I thought of Alastair and all those others who have gone. Each of them has shaped me, enriching and widening the circle of my life.

Every life touches others in ways we may never fully understand. Each loss reshapes us, reminding us of what remains.

Grief does not go away. It remains. But it does not have the power to define our lives – that is the preserve of the living. As I grow older, and the losses accumulate, I remind myself that loss does not define the circle. Life does. And the circle continues to grow.