How a long solo journey helped me process grief

Tracey describes how having lost a friend this summer, a lone trek to a Greek island helped her start the path to acceptance.

It's a weird feeling waiting for your friend to die. I don't quite know what to do with myself. It feels like my head has been removed from my body and my limbs just want to flail about. I keep pacing and reeling. My head flipping from feeling inherent rage to a weird, uncomfortable numbness. Fuck cancer.

I only found out her illness was terminal a few days prior and was told she had only weeks rather than months – or in my mind, years and years – to live.

I was on holiday in Montenegro when I got the news that she was having hospice care at home, she was sleeping and probably wouldn't wake up again. We'll let you know when the time comes said the text.

It was a day later flying home when the pre-grief hit. After too many beers and some unnecessary wine, I'm pacing the aisles of Duty Free in Dubrovnik Airport like a mad woman, not sure where to put my feelings. I keep swinging between absolute rage and complete disbelief, with moments of feeling angry at myself for not knowing how to behave. Grow up, Trace. You’re 52, for god’s sake.

I have another beer. Completely inadvisable. Now I'm drunk and sad. The worst combination. Being away from home when something devastating happens puts you in this weird paradox. Even though I check my phone every 45 seconds, it doesn't feel real. I look up and see signs in a different language. It’s the foreignness of travel that makes what's happening at home feel like it’s on a different planet.

I'm often away when big news happens. My darling grandad died when I was 24 and travelling around India. My parents didn’t want to spoil my trip so didn’t mention it when I called home. I found out months after he’d been buried and I had to deal with this weird delayed grief.

I was backpacking in Bowen, a backwater farming community in Queensland, Australia when Princess Diana died. I watched the news unfold in real time nursing a schooner of VB in a local farmer’s bar. Even then it didn't feel real. Possibly because I was thousands of miles away from home and felt entirely removed from the collective grief.

And more recently, I was on a press trip in Oman with a bunch of journalists when the Queen died. Our hosted meal came to stand still as we had to immediately turn to social media to witness the nation's reaction. Weirdly, I quite liked it. It felt nice to receive the news at the same time and share our thoughts and feelings about our elderly head of state. 

My friend died the day after I got home from Montenegro. I was walking Miss Babs on the beach when I got the text. In a mix of shock, sadness and a relief that I don't have to hold my breath anymore, I stripped down to my pants and bra and got in the sea. I needed the cold to reset. And as a fellow sea swimmer, it's what she would have wanted.

The funeral was everything. Desperately, desperately sad but also a celebration of a life well lived. Watching her family grieve is beyond heartbreaking but it was also beautiful to see how loved she was.

The day after the funeral I got up at 2.30am and travelled to Andros. Over the next 14 hours, I travelled by coach, plane, taxi, ferry and, finally, bus before I arrived at the Paradise Art hotel in Chora.

A lengthy solo journey turned out to be the perfect way to deal with my post-funeral feelings. Travelling alone is my happy place. I love nothing more than being entirely by myself somewhere abroad where no one knows me – or more importantly, wants anything from me. I could float silently around the airport, stare quietly out the window in the taxi and have the warm Greek breeze blow through my mind on the ferry. I needed all that delicious alone time to be with my thoughts and process her passing.

By the time I arrived on Andros, I felt weirdly at peace. At the hotel, I sat on the balcony with a cold beer and some oregano crisps and toasted my beautiful friend.

Like the great Hippocrates informed his students, “Life is short and Art is long; opportunity fleeting, experiment treacherous, judgment difficult.”

Life is all these things, so let’s do what we can do.

For you, Fran x