h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My most recent experience of grief losing my dad eight months ago, has taught me a lot about loss; and what's become more clear is the physical and emotional impact over the course of the experience - especially the urge to fill the hole.

In the beginning I just felt numb - as if the loss were more a matter of practicality than emotion, and the need to arrange the funeral and sort out his estate were most pressing. But as the dust settled, and practical necessities were finished, the sense of him being gone became more and more real. In his absence, I felt hollow and alone. Instinctively, and without my even realising it, I looked for a replacement for him, a source of affection that mimicked his, my methods nothing if not diverse.

What I've realised since is the thing I was trying to replace was not the person, but the relationship. The emotional connection had been severed, and if it were a physical one, my end was open and sore. For a long time, I thought it was okay - I'd accepted that he was gone, and lulled myself into a false sense of security that I'd got over it. But all the while I was lurching out to people, looking for that plug. Suddenly, BAM! it hit me like a train. He was *really* gone, and there was nothing that could possibly replace him - the tears poured out of me for days and I realised there was absolutely no getting him back.

But once I'd had that purge I felt much stronger, and started to feel I didn't need to find that replacement anymore. However much I looked to find a relationship to replace the one I'd lost, nothing on earth could possibly replace *that* one. It was both difficult, and loving, but it was unique and can't be recovered.

I've come to look on grief in the same terms as any other frightening experience. In the first few weeks, mind, body and soul are just numb, like the moment you notice you've cut yourself. As the reality of the situation encroaches, the pain gets more severe, and you'll do anything to make it go away. If the loss is shared by others who felt that connection with the deceased, (as to an extent we've all done since the loss of Douglas) it's no less personal an experience, but if not suffered alone, it's nowhere near as difficult.

But, like all wounds, the one true healer is time; and every day it gets a little easier, until eventually, it will be hardly there at all. The happiest memories of the one you've lost are enough to sustain you through it, and they never leave.