The hardest thing

The past few days have been a bit of a pain, literally. My bruised rib still hurts and makes sleeping tricky unless I neck painkillers that contain opiates. These dull the pain and knock me out – I can't say I mind. My friend, SS, picked me up yesterday so that I could buy a trolley-load of goods from Sainsbury's, as there was no way I could manage alone, and I didn't want to wait until S was home in the evening. We had a cup of tea and a cake afterwards. It was a lovely, sunny day, almost approaching springtime, I thought (it rained like fury later, however).

SS seemed to be in fairly good spirits. He is trying to sort out what to do with his mum's house at the moment. At times, he seems so calm and amiable that you forget he was bereaved just a few weeks ago. I ask him how he is regularly, but not overly, and at times say that if he wants to talk about anything relating to his mum, he can. I'm not sure he would. But that's his choice. He has friends rallying around him – useful in the absence of siblings.

Occasionally, SS comes out with something that sounds off, or odd, but maybe he is not really thinking clearly. I recall the fortnight after his mum died, he would ask me things that I had literally told him about in detail the day before.

When my grandmother died in 2000, my mum was upset but didn't talk about it much. She isn't a talker, in that sense. She mentions her beloved mum now and then but I don't think she would sit down and answer: "How are you feeling?" with any eagerness. She is calm, and is a relaxing, caring presence, always. My dad, whose mum died when he was a child, stopped talking about such events a long time ago. He had a hard life afterwards. He, too, has dealt with much, and become a wonderful human being in spite of things that many would use as excuses for bitterness.

A dear friend lost her sister when my friend was just 18. She once told me she felt "robbed". She refers to her sister in conversations occasionally – I think she is inspired by her memory; she is a do-er, a remarkable, funny, kind woman who doesn't take life for granted. Another friend lost his father at 11, and has – I think – shaped his life around that loss. He is devoted to his children and is delighted by them in an all-encompassing way that brings him fulfillment.

These are some of the ways people deal with the hardest things. It is their prerogative and worthy of the utmost respect. There are more stories like these.

When a friend of mine died when she was 20, I dreamed for years that she had faked her death. Sometimes, even now, those dreams override the reality that she is no longer alive and I have to remind myself of the truth. She has been with me in dreams – in the background – with me telling her that she was dead and asking her what was she doing there. Confused, I'd ask: "Is that you, (insert name of her sister)?" And she would reply: "No, it's me." I would wake up bemused at times, slightly uncomfortable and then, sad. Once, she told me, in one of the most breathtakingly vivid dreams of my life, that she was "happy now", and then she danced into the distance, smiling as she never had in life.