Loss of Intimacy by Desney King

This piece was written by stroke survivor Desney King and was first published in the Hunter Writers Association “Grieve” anthology a couple of years ago. Now, more than four and half years after that first stroke, Desney reports the grief has indeed softened to acceptance, gentleness.

It’s almost two and a half years since my life was transformed by a brain stem stroke. I can no longer work, drive, socialise, or sit or stand unsupported for more than a couple of minutes — my bed has become a dear and familiar place of solace.

I was 60 when the stroke hit — sitting at my desk at home, engrossed in editing a manuscript. I’d already done some creative writing of my own that morning, and been for a power walk around my leafy suburb.

There’s so much I’ve lost — I’ve not been into the city, nor seen a beach, a campfire, the bush, the inside of a restaurant, the inside of a theatre or the opera house. I’ve not been on a ferry, nor a road trip, nor a holiday. And yet about those losses, surprisingly, I feel only a gentle sadness. I know the feeling isn’t grief, because it’s not lonely — I can talk about missing these things without my listener feeling hideously uncomfortable.

But in recent weeks, a greater loss has threatened to overwhelm me; a slow, deep, profound grieving has stirred and swirled, catching me by surprise and unsettling my typically calm emotional and mental state. I’ve realised that some of the people I’ve held dearest for decades are slipping away from me.

And it’s this gradual loss of comfortable intimacy that has hurtled me into the desperate loneliness of grief.

I cannot make people come to visit me; cannot force them to phone just to yarn about what’s happening in their daily lives. If I tried, the artificiality of the contact would undo any sense of ease and true connectedness.

So why don’t I phone them? Well, sometimes I do. Not very often, because I remember how busy a working life in the city keeps people. Even my attempts at this kind of contact are dwindling, because my dear friends are too busy to talk for more than a few minutes, if at all. I feel the urgency of work, or socialising, or other people tugging at them; their awkwardness in wanting to end our conversation without hurting me or being rude. But the intimacy of close friendship is sustained by frequent sharing. A 15-minute chat once or twice a year can only sketch in broad details.

Recently, I’ve tried talking about this to a few carefully selected people — not those I feel so painfully separated from. They’ve been understanding, wonderfully supportive. Yet afterwards, my grief has felt deeper, the silence of my solitude more intense.

This morning, finally, I’ve come face to face with what I know from long ago: that grief is an anguished inner landscape that I must navigate alone; that the journey through it is long, and often feels unbearable. And yet I know, also, that over long swathes of dark time, my grief will soften; become less relentless, less pervasive.

Slowly, light will filter in, bringing with it bright glimpses of my newly configured world.