Some stuff I’ve learnt about grief

You’re not going mad if you see dead people

I’ve been seeing my dad quite a lot lately. Oh, and I should mention, he died last November.

At his nursing home, Stan was the poster boy for staying active. At 97, he was still the first out of bed every morning, the first to breakfast, out the door by 8:30am, hitting the local walking trails, sometimes clocking up five or six kilometres before lunch.

I’d go searching for him on my morning bike ride, often stopped by locals eager to report on his progress. ‘He’s just across the bridge’, they’d say, or ‘we just saw him down by the river mouth’.

And there he’d be. Sitting on his ‘wheely walker’, talking to the magpies, filling his phone with photos of the ever-changing seascape, or sharing stories with other walkers. Partly, it was his way of living with his own raw grief, having lost his wife of 70+ years—my beautiful mum—not so long ago. But it was also just him. Always on the move. Always curious. Always listening to others.

When I see Dad now, it’s usually just a glimpse—a hint of him moving through the landscape. Not a ghostly apparition. Probably just my grieving brain filling in the gaps. Putting him in the places he should be, leaning into his wheely walker, baseball cap pulled tight, disappearing around a bend in the trail.

Some days the grief knocks me sideways and I have to get off my bike and let the tears and snot flow. Other days I smile to myself and remember our walks and the stories we shared. We talked so much in the last two years of his life and I’m so grateful for that.

It took me 60 years to know my dad and I can’t believe he’s just vanished into thin air. Where did he and Mum go? The biggest question of all … and the one with the least satisfactory answers.

Grief is random and mysterious … beautiful and awful. All the questions are valid.

We don’t always grieve the same way

My dear mum, Shirl, died in 2023, and while it knocked me of my axis, it was a very different kind of grief. There have been times over the past three years when I’ve felt guilt and shame for … I don’t know … not grieving ‘properly’ or ‘enough’. But I’ve come to realise that it was just different. And when it comes to grief, different is okay.

There was also a strange guilt about having those two years with Dad where we grew closer than we’d ever been. That remarkable time in my life was only possible because Mum died first. Some days I felt like I’d thrown a party and didn’t invite her. I wasn’t prepared for the guilt that accompanied my grieving.

I can’t know what my dad went through in the two years after he lost Mum, but for me there was a sense that my own grief was shared. We talked about Mum almost every day. And rather than being hit by tsunamis of loss, there was a sense that every story and every memory we shared helped atomise the grief. A fine mist instead of a deluge.

Grief is not cricket

I certainly don’t feel ‘qualified’ to offer advice about grief. Even committing these words to the page feels at once a waste of time and strangely important. But there’s one piece of advice I can offer unequivocally. Never tell a grieving person that their loved one ‘had a good innings’.

Years are no measure of a person’s sense of loss. The arc of my parent’s lives cannot be likened to a game of cricket.

I’m beyond grateful that both my parents lived a long and full life, but to assume their longevity equals some kind of ‘get out of grief free’ card is hurtful.

I know it’s because people are uncomfortable with death and don’t have the words for loss, but if that’s the case, no words is a better choice … or a big hug, or a casserole, or better still, a question or two about the person who died.

I love nothing more than an opportunity to talk about Mum and Dad. I’ll probably shed a tear, but I’ll also laugh, and remember, and feel them close.

Laughter is okay … perhaps mandatory

When my sister died way too young back in 2017, we took her ashes—as a family—down to where the Hopkins River meets the Southern Ocean. It’s a magical place where Ruth’s whoops of joy and laughter still echo on the waves—from all the years she bodyboarded that wild surf.

As we scattered her ashes among the breakers, a dog bounded down the beach towards us—a dalmatian, all lolling-tongued and full of life. In seconds the scene erupted into a mess of dog, and remains and sea foam and, of course, laughter and tears. The dog took off up the beach with Ruth’s ashes stuck to its wet, spotted fur. We couldn’t have scripted a better farewell—she would have loved it.

Now, when I walk that stretch of beach, I no longer think of her final weeks in hospital, but instead her smile and laughter—and that stupid, gorgeous, rollicking dog who epitomised the chaos of grief.

Grief is everyone and everywhere

Almost everyone is grieving for someone or something. I guess I’ve always known this, but its truth is more immediate these days.

I recently saw Chloé Zhao’s 2025 film, Hamnet (twice actually). It’s hard to imagine a more powerful expression of the universal nature of grief and loss. It’s transformed the way I walk through the world.

Based on the life of William Shakespeare and his wife Agnes, the film explores grief as a visceral, isolating and transformative force, focusing on the very different ways Will and Agnes mourn the loss of their 11-year-old son, Hamnet.

Agnes’s grief is raw, physical, and angry, while Will withdraws, turning to his work and writing as a coping mechanism.

The final 30 minutes of the film—a performance of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the Globe Theatre—is an incredible portrayal of universal grief. As Hamlet’s final scene plays out (spoiler alert, Hamlet dies), the crowd in the Globe, beginning with Agnes, lean towards Hamlet with outstretched arms in a heart-wrenching gesture of shared loss.

The play is both a public memorial to Hamnet, but also a bridge of understanding between Will and Agnes, and the quiet pain of everyone in the audience.

Leaving the cinema in tears, I wasn’t alone. Life is grief and grief is life. A heartbreaking and beautiful thing—and the connecting force that makes us human.

By John Holton