When your phone announces that a new message or Whatsapp has arrived, what emotion do you feel? Excitement? perhaps the anticipation of new social plans, or a connection with an old friend? Or do you feel dread?
I’m reminded of this 2020 tweet by Philippa Perry, in which she encouraged readers to “don’t think too hard but complete the following sentence: Most people are…” The replies broadly fell into two camps: on the one hand, those who thought that most people are kind, and on the other, those who felt that most people are awful. I wonder if people are similarly divided in their knee-jerk responses to phone ring tones. I wonder if, in one camp, there are those who have overwhelmingly positive experiences of other people and feel a frisson of excitement when their phones buzz; and, in the other, there are those for whom other people - and therefore phones and other communication devices - come with more difficult emotions. Which camp are you in?
I’m writing this post partly in response to a comment that was made last year, in reply to a newsletter I wrote about possible ways to support someone going through bereavement. Essentially, my suggestions boiled down to “just be there”, but a reader wondered what to do when his messages to a bereaved friend repeatedly went unanswered. Should he keep trying to reach out? Or should he give up? Obviously everyone is different, and has different reasons for failing to reply to texts or DMs or Whatsapp messages, and I’m not suggesting that it’s a good thing to keep persevering in the face of silence. But I want to talk about some of the reasons that I find it difficult to reply to - and sometimes even read - messages and emails since being bereaved in early 2022. This is also an apology to friends who have gone unanswered: I know my behaviour is rude, and I’m sorry. The sheer horror and dread that I feel whenever my phone (or laptop) pings makes it very hard to enjoy that form of communication. I know this isn’t a brilliant excuse, but I hope that, at least, I can offer a bit of an explanation. And this is why it is like that for me.
The world in which my late husband lived and died was largely an online one, and perhaps it’s grotesquely fitting that I first knew he was dead - a couple of hours before the police knocked at my door - because of a post on a local Facebook group. One of my husband’s chief residences was Twitter, where he sought out (and was sought out by) users with conflicting views on anti-Semitism, Labour, Corbyn, and the Middle East, among other topics, and where they engaged in debate (to put it neutrally). In the days immediately before and after his death, I discovered the extent of some of his debates. I think it’s public knowledge now that my husband had entirely kept it from me that he was involved in serious legal action, in two separate cases that revolved around his Twitter activities. His involvement in these cases was a discovery I made after his death, along with the fact that, as executor of his Estate, I was now responsible for managing at least one of those cases.
Beside reading the emails and messages of condolence that came in in the days after his death, I had to take part in the social media circus, which started whirling into action before I was ready, after the news of Pete’s death spilled out from colleagues. In a panic, I posted an announcement on Twitter, coupled with a photograph of me and him drunkenly dancing at 3am to a playlist he had made for my 40th birthday. It was a bad choice of commemorative photograph: at the time, I hadn’t thought about the fact that the blurry image of me snogging his cheek was going to be the accompaniment to many other posts and articles about his death, for years to come.
My phone soon started filling with legal documents, bringing me up to speed with the cases and setting out potential plans of action, and possible financial consequences. There were unspeakably horrifying emails from the Coroner’s office, describing the nature of Pete’s injuries; and text messages from the police about his mangled belongings and requirements for me to make a statement. I hired another lawyer, to help with these communications with the Coroner and police. There were also onerous messages with PDF attachments I had to complete in order to claim various state and pension benefits; complicated emails from my wonderful financial advisor about life insurance and tax returns; as well as text messages from the funeral director and potential celebrants, funeral florists, and village hall managers. It is one of the peculiarly grotesque things about British practices of mourning that, at precisely the time when you’re most addled and least capable of complex administrative multi-tasking, you have to plan a funeral and a wake.
Death elicits territorial behaviour from the bereaved. I’ve had the misfortune to be closely involved in planning three funerals in the last five years, and my experience of all of them has involved various family members vying for their proximity to the deceased to be recognised, or prioritised. This might take the form of one person’s music choice being granted over another’s; painful wrangles over readings; or tensions over who is really ‘next of kin’, who sits where, and who has a right to certain personal belongings. I’m sure that many people who have organised funerals have had the distressing experience of receiving angry, hurt messages from other family members around these matters, and my experience was no exception. Those tensions sadly increased in the weeks and months after his death, and the messages that were already bombarding my phone from lawyers dealing with my late husband’s legal affairs and my responsibilities to the police and Coroner, were joined by messages from new sets of lawyers, dealing with financial action that was being brought against me.
Bereavement elicits territorial behaviour in a slightly different way, too. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t experienced it myself, but the vulnerability of the bereaved can be treated by some as an opportunity for a type of land-grab: perhaps for a professional role or title, perhaps for money, perhaps simply to enjoy kicking someone who is down. Dealing with these sorts of attacks is not pleasant at the best of times; at the worst of times, it’s horror piled on horror.
All of this took its toll. It became too much. I find it very difficult to dwell again in those horrifying months after my husband’s death, but I remember the sensation of grief crawling over my skin like a million beetles, and I hacked off all my hair with a set of kitchen scissors to shuck them off. My phone pinged with messages from the mental health crisis team, my GP, a psychiatrist who looked at me sadly and suggested that I might have a future writing motivational books about grief, and a social services team who suggested that a regular yoga practice might help me to look after my three children. My poor children; what were we going to do? Finally, my phone buzzed with a message from a wonderful life-saving therapist who didn’t have space for me but made space anyway.
Today, I’m two years and four months into widowhood. My consciousness is not quite the horror movie that it was in those first few months, but it’s still not a very nice place to dwell for long. I try to think as little as possible. I’ve spent the last two years sorting my belongings into boxes and bags, which I’ve labelled, so that I don’t have to think about where anything needs to be put. I have lists and rotas and timetables pinned up throughout the house, so that day-to-day life is simply a matter of mindlessly following instructions. I only feel properly free when I’m out running, and the bilateral motion of left-foot-right-foot, and the soothing continuity of inhale-exhale, somehow removes the horror from my thoughts and allows my mind to wander relatively painlessly.
But the second that my phone pings, I come back down to earth. Once again, I’m freezing cold with dread; my stomach full of needles. Who could it be? Who’s dead? Who is suing me? What have I done wrong now? What do I need to do? I don’t want to look; I’m terrified. Even if it’s an innocuous message - someone checking up on me, say - there’s no relief, because now I’m trapped in a conundrum. If I reply, then they’ll also reply, and I’ll go through exactly the same rigmarole in an hour or so. But if I don’t reply - as I probably won’t - then the recipient will be added to my mental list of people who are likely to send me angry messages expressing how disappointed they are in me, and who will come to mind whenever my phone pings in the future.
I haven’t found a solution, and I don’t know what to say to last year’s correspondent who asked whether he should keep persevering with messaging a bereaved friend who never replies. Perhaps she’s not replying for very different reasons to me. Perhaps not all bereaved people are so troubled by their phones - although I suspect that many of the experiences I’ve described are not unique to myself. But I’m not asking my own friends to keep on messaging in the face of my silence because, honestly, I don’t enjoy the experience and I can’t see that changing any time soon. The only form of messaging that I can stomach these days is one that exists purely to facilitate face-to-face contact. In those circumstances, the pain seems worth it.
Thank you for sharing how hard this is. For very different reasons, I've also learnt not to think in order to protect myself. It works, but it takes its own toll. Best wishes to you, keep doing whatever works for you and your children, no one else matters.
Thank you for having the courage to share. Absolutely nobody is entitled to an explanation but I and, I feel sure, many others find your writing helpful and instructive. Best wishes