Category Archives: Bereavement

Margaret Atwood: ‘If you’re going to speak truth to power, make sure it’s the truth’

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A polarising US election, a global pandemic, the rise of cancel culture: what does the queen of dystopian fiction make of 2020 so far?

Margaret Atwood is smiling, waving a green copy of her book The Testaments at me, while I wave a black one back at her. High-cheekboned, pale-skinned, her curly grey hair like a corona, she’s wearing a jewel-green blouse that makes her eyes glitter. Behind her stretches her large, comfy, slightly darkened sitting room in Toronto, with books and wall hangings and a whirring fan. Atwood gleams out of my screen, bright in all senses.

She is talking about being a grouch. She tells me she turns down a lot of interview requests, “and then I get a reputation as being very grumpy and hard to deal with. But who cares?” Grumpy seems wrong to me. I had been warned that Atwood was scary – super-sharp and impatient – but she’s not like that either. She is unsentimental, clear, sure of her facts and opinions, but she also has a light, mischievous quality. She says my name as though constantly on the verge of teasing me.

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From giving up gambling and getting fit to coping with grief: how our lives changed in lockdown

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This year’s isolation has been painful, but in some cases it has also provided a valuable chance to pause, reflect and take decisions that seemed unthinkable before. Here, six readers describe how lockdown inspired them to turn their lives around

As soon as he heard about the impending lockdown, Alex Harrison, 34, drove to his local casino in Liverpool and asked them to ban him for life. In the manager’s office, his photograph was taken and his details were recorded on an iPad. To his surprise, the manager congratulated him.

Harrison has battled with a gambling addiction for 10 years. When he walked into the casino that day, he owed around £1,000 to friends, family and payday lenders. Occasionally, he would gamble his entire month’s salary on the day he was paid.

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One school, 25 bereavements: Essex head fears emotional impact of Covid-19

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Vic Goddard is one of many school leaders daunted by the burden of supporting pupils and staff through their grief

Vic Goddard is trying not to cry. The headteacher of Passmores academy in Harlow and star of the 2011 TV series Educating Essex is thinking about the 23 pupils and two staff at his school who have been bereaved during the coronavirus pandemic.

His greatest fear, a fear that keeps him awake at night and is making his voice tremble, is what could happen to them if he does not manage to support them adequately when they return to school. “I’m going to get upset, I’m really sorry…” he stops. “You feel dreadfully … dreadfully … There is an element of responsibility.”

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My mother was dying – but my best friend brought happiness to a brutally sad day

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When I visited my mother in the intensive care ward on Christmas Day, she insisted I head off and celebrate properly. After a sombre meal, my friend’s call brought a glimmer of hope

The year 2012 had been a long and difficult one. One of three, in fact. It had been three years since my mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer and, ever since, I, my dad and older brother had been living in the hospital-filled limbo so familiar to families of cancer patients – life dictated by chemo cycles, the endless bedside waiting, the guilty mental preparation for the inevitable.

Christmas in the Kalia household had always been a major occasion, though, and something to look forward to. Even though we are Hindus – our roots are in India – we had embraced the festival’s feasting and gift-giving. My mum would usually invite her two siblings and their ever-expanding families for turkey with all the trimmings, a meal she would spend days preparing while my kitchen-inept dad would look on in awe, faithfully laying the table and clearing dishes. That table would hold at least 15 others, all laughing and stuffing themselves – the usual disagreements that characterised family gatherings strangely absent. Since she had fallen ill, though, Christmas had morphed from a day of celebration of our big immigrant family’s resilient togetherness to a day fearful of absence. Which Christmas would be Mum’s last, I would wonder, and how could I make that one count more than the others?

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‘My mother-in-law called me Walter White’: how magic mushrooms rescued me from grief

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After our daughter’s death I was overwhelmed by pain and anxiety. Microdosing home-grown mushrooms helped me cope

It was spring when my wife’s waters broke, three months early. We rushed to hospital, terrified. If our daughter arrived now, she might not survive. If she did, she would probably be plagued by lifelong health problems. Jo spent the next four days in hospital, while we prayed labour wouldn’t begin. But the night after we returned home, Jo’s contractions started and we raced back to hospital. Straight away, a foetal monitor was placed on her tummy. The brisk heartbeat we had been following so closely in the previous days was gone. Our daughter had died.

The train of our life was shunted on to a parallel track. We could see the train we were meant to be on pulling away, passing the milestones – the due date, introducing the baby to our family, the first smiles. But ahead of us now lay despair, guilt, a funeral, photos of our precious girl that some family members could barely bring themselves to look at, and support groups where every story would be more heart-rending than the last. There is no right way to deal with losing a baby, but I would call my coping strategy unusual: I became obsessed with growing magic mushrooms.

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‘Without my daughter, drinking would have been a problem’: Patton Oswalt on bereavement

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The comedian’s life was upended in 2016 when his wife died. He discusses her role in the Golden State Killer case, the ‘shadow slog’ of grief – and the reaction to his remarriage

The sad clown. The chronic depressive comedian. It is one of the greatest cliches in showbusiness. Patton Oswalt – ebullient, life-affirming, swearing as he hurtles along the Interstate 10 highway in California – does not sound like one of those. At least, not any more.

Oswalt’s wife, the true-crime writer Michelle McNamara, died suddenly in 2016 at the age of 46. That was the second-worst day of Oswalt’s life. The worst was breaking the news to their seven-year-old daughter, Alice, the next day.

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