Today I held a married man's hand in public
Don't worry it's not a pre wedding mid life crisis kind of thing that was going on
I'm not the sort
It was, in fact, a moment of support for someone who is a couple of decades older than I
Who has just lost a dear and very elderly parent.
There seems an unwritten rule in this world which says that if you are of pensionable age, then the loss of your mother or father is somehow cushioned by the fact that they were well past their " three score years and ten" and that the emotions felt are somehow less raw, less important and less valid than those experienced by someone who is bereaved at an earlier age.
In your seventies, you don't want to hear platitudes such as " she was a good age"
You just want validation for the grief that overwhelms you, the presence of which, because of your age, seems to elude most people
Grief is grief........is.....well.......grief.......it's not rocket science
Even in the animal world
See below....Brutus grieves for his brother Hank who died in his sleep...heartbreaking
