On grief: My experience of dealing with loss whilst studying at Durham University

After a long and extremely difficult battle with cancer, my father died on November 22, 2023. This is my experience of losing someone extremely close to me during my first year at university.

The Durham bubble: Struggling to process grief while living away from home

For me, Durham and home sometimes feel like two separate worlds that I manage to float between. As much as I appreciated the escapist formal dinners and nights out with friends when returning after I lost my father, being back at university was hard for a number of reasons. Firstly, and perhaps most significantly, there was no one around me who could understand my loss; my father is half of me, and yet most of my friends had never even met him. In reality, Durham and home are not two different worlds. I carry my loss with me wherever I go; grief pays no heed to your coordinates. Realising this has been extremely helpful for managing losing someone whilst living away from home.

Secondly, being away from home made it harder for me to accept that my dad had actually died. I tend not to go home during term time so when I am back at university it is almost easy to miss my parents in rather equal measure. Only when I am back home do I fully feel the weight of my father’s absence. I get to see my mother when term ends.

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Finally, I felt guilty for enjoying myself at university. My mum and sister were in the house where it all happened, and I had just left. I think of the Christmas formal because I genuinely had a great evening, even though there was also the undercurrent that I was taking a temporary break from my own misery, masquerading a little. Bereavement has felt like watching the world explode from within a protective casing – like being in the middle of a lake, helpless as a forest burns around you.

Trying to bring these worlds together – whether through introducing my home friends to my university friends or calling my mum up to tell her about Durham drama – has really helped me stay afloat over the last year, as I feel I don’t have to leave different parts of my life where they are lived.

I am grateful to have met some of my closest friends during my time at Durham. They have been brilliant. My best friend, in particular, has always been there for me and continues to be, listening to my stories about my dad and considering how I am feeling on anniversaries and holidays like Father’s Day. Without me even knowing, she watched his funeral remotely just because she cared and wanted to see how I was holding up, which I think may be one of the kindest things anyone has ever done for me.

Feeling torn between my responsibilities and the grief I was trying to process when at home

I often felt guilty for going home, thinking of upcoming deadlines, books to read, and the tutorials I was missing. I constantly felt like I was supposed to be “doing something” in the days after my father passed away. But the truth is, I was doing something. I was saying goodbye to my father, spending time with my mother and sister, and then learning how to exist without one of the most significant people in my life. And that was enough.

Reflecting on the university’s response and a message

Durham University was generally supportive during the process. I did not go out of my way to talk to anyone about it aside from informing my academic supervisor, who in turn informed the student support team for my subject, my department, and my college. Everyone who contacted me was lovely and I was never made to feel bad for being at home, that was absolutely a result of my own struggle to balance life and work. Going forward, it might help if the university checked in with students a few weeks after bereavement. I did not feel I could reach out first, simply because I didn’t know what to say.

This is by no means an attempt to capture everyone’s experience with or response grief; it is simply an exploration of my own experience this year.

Although I wish nobody would be able to relate to this, I know that someone reading might. If that’s you, you are not alone. You’re not weak for needing to go home, and you’re not wrong for staying at university. Your frustration and feelings of being misunderstood are valid. You’re not a bad person for feeling angry and upset, and you’re not wrong for going out and trying to find your ‘new normal.

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