As a social worker, I am only too aware that grief never goes away, that the times inbetween the feelings of pain get longer, allowing us to survive. But sometimes, you get pulled up with a start when grief suddenly hits you like a tidal wave out of the blue, reminding you of the loss you’ve had.

I was preparing a talk to a group of chartered accountants a couple of weeks ago, which included the story of how I became totally blind. The telling of this story for me is straightforward: it happened, it was terrible and I suffered incredibly, but I picked myself up afterwards and got on with my life. I can say the words that probably shock my audience without much feeling at all.

But a vivid dream the night before the talk brought me back to reality with a thud, reminding me that the grief is still there and that I am human. In the dream, I was bakc in the days when I could see out of my left eye – I’d lost my right eye as a baby to cancer. But it was the time when I was experiencing a lot of pain and dryness in that eye, which meant having to use a lot of eye ointment and eye drops to maintain the comfort level. In the dream, I was trying to explain to people around me that I was doing everything I could to look after my eye. And then I suddenly broke down, declaring that although I’d done everything I could, I hadn’t been able to save it. I woke up sobbing uncontrollably. I was right back there at the time when I knew the doctors couldn’t do anything to save my eye and that I was going to lose it. The emotional pain was intense.

I’m glad this happened the night before my talk, because I managed to get through the presentation without any feelings again. But this dream really reminded me of how hard it is to lose a part of our bodies, no matter how small. Losing an eye is perhaps harder in some ways because the eye provides us with visual contact with the world around us. This dream has tapped me on the shoulder, reminding me to be gentle with myself at times, because the feelings of loss never leave us entirely.