Richard E Grant has put the French holiday home he spent 30 happy summers in with his family on the market.
There are clearly many reasons he decided to sell, but an experience he had there recently, with a couple he’s known for 25 years, must surely have been a factor.
He posted a video about it on social media afterwards, captioned: “Walking widower encountering so-called ‘friends’ who edit themselves out of your life”.
Richard’s wife of 35 years, Joan, died in 2021. The pain he’s enduring is visible on his face, he genuinely looks different, changed for ever on the outside just as he is inside.
And when he bumped into these friends of two-and-a-half decades, they “ducked their heads”. Blanked him.
Presumably they didn’t intend to be cruel, but they panicked – didn’t know what to say, how to be with him. Because as a society we are so, so terrible at talking about grief.
Death is an utter, concrete certainty which will affect every human on the planet repeatedly, and yet the majority of people are far more comfortable pretending it won’t or hasn’t happened. The complexities of grief are at the forefront of my mind at the moment – disclaimer: no, I’m not equating this with a spouse of 35 years, but still no one’s allowed to say, “Oh, come on, it’s just a pet” – as we anxiously wait for our cat Major Ferguson’s test results.
My eight-year-old son has inherited my love of felines to the extent that every year, as he blows out his birthday candles, he always wishes our two will live for ever. (Although he told me what the wish was so now it won’t come true. Idiot.)
Major Ferguson – a creature of such incredible appetite that he once ate an advent calendar, including the cardboard – has mysteriously lost 20% of his body weight, so we’re all very worried.
But no one more so than my boy, who has had an especially close bond with him since the day he came home from the hospital.
A massive reason it’s good for kids to have pets is to teach them about loss. I know this, and I have lived it, via the long-suffering, often dressed up in doll’s clothes, cats of my childhood, Coco and Marmalade (RIP, gone but not forgotten.) So now, yet another nerve-racking parenting test.
This is my chance to teach someone how to deal with grief well, not to be scared of it, or feel uncomfortable in its presence.
To set a path that will hopefully end with my son not ducking his head and avoiding someone in mourning, but being able to speak to them, comfort them, and understand. To look them in the eye and acknowledge what they’re going through, to be able to say the name of the person they’ve lost, and let them talk freely.
When my dad died, and more recently a beyond beloved aunt, this is what I needed, and the times people weren’t able to do it, it made a situation that couldn’t have been worse a little bit worse. Equally, I will never forget, and am forever grateful to those who could.
I’m hoping it won’t come to this, but my son being fluent in grief would be a befitting legacy for our Major. And look, I’m in denial too because even if the results aren’t devastating now, neither cat will live for ever, unfortunately. Not now he told me his wish. Idiot.
