What do I know of grief ? I am 50 but have never lost anyone close to me. Oh sure, there are people I have known whom I later find have died after we ceased to associate. A school friend here, an university mate there, even somebody who sat opposite me for a week at work, but never have I lost anyone whose absence impacted me. I have even (quietly) thought the worse of a friend whom I considered obsessed with death to the point of being a funeral junkie. It didn't seem to matter how distant a relationship, if she knew of them then she had to go and get her fix. A fix of what I cared not to ask but her's was a morbid fascination with which I had little sympathy.

However, now my parents are getting on and becoming noticeably infirm I have discovered I must live with the realisation  that one day, hopefully not soon but inevitably, they will leave me. And I have begun to understand I don't know how I'll cope. If grief can be practiced, then I have none. Not, as I recall, that it helped my friend either when her own mother passed.

I did understand that people die. I didn't understand how the loss would feel. Perhaps it's something one can never grasp until it has happened, because the imagination refuses to go there. But it's also that death has been so removed from our daily experience that it has become almost embarrassingly private. We have gone from the strict and public mourning rituals of the Victorian era, with widows in heavy black clothes for a year and a day, and men wearing black armbands to signify loss, to having no mechanisms to signal our sadness at all.

When it happened I realised that I, like many of us, had neither the public ritual nor the private knowledge to tell me how to get through this. I needed to talk to those who had already lived through it, and who could tell me what had helped them. I wanted to talk about my father with those who had cared about him. Lastly, and almost most importantly, I wanted the close friends of mine who had never met my parents to know what had happened. And I wasn't sure how far it was reasonable to ask for any of this from anyone.

I couldn't think of anyone ever having messaged me to tell me that one of their parents had died. It's the kind of thing that comes up in conversation when you see someone, not something that you are notified of. So who was I to impose this news on others, especially at Christmas time. I didn't want to be the spectre at the feast.

I couldn't hope that many people would hear the news themselves. I don't belong to a church or a community that would provide such a structure. Much of the time we welcome the freedom of action that that implies. At times like this, though, it can be a loss. Mourners want to feel supported, but don't know what they can expect from others. Friends and acquaintances can be quite oblivious to those needs. In that gap there is room for much uncertainty and disappointment to grow.

One friend of mine was bereft when her stepfather, the only constant parent in her life, died young. She arranged the funeral, then felt abandoned. She found herself longing for the Jewish rituals others observed. "What I really wanted was for people to sit shiva with me - where friends and neighbours mourn with you, and bring food, for seven days. I didn't want to feel so alone." I didn't know this at the time. She, embarrassed by her need, kept it to herself. But it still hurts

Which is the point of this diary

Without the forms that tell people how to offer help, though, both the grieving and their friends can feel adrift and misunderstood.

Since we all insist on being such individuals, the only way through this is to be more honest and more generous with one another about what we would like, and the spirit in which it is accepted. The bereft can't expect their friends to be mind-readers, or express themselves with perfect empathy. I have been grateful for any and every message I have had, and am deeply sorry for the letters I didn't think to write in the past. The terrible fact of death is the loss of history, love, connection and meaning. The only consolation it offers is that the sympathy we are given and the sorrow we share can bring us closer to the living.

The comments thread was one of the most moving I remember on CiF. One commenter came close to Auden as she described her feelings;-

My experience was that I could not understand,,could hardly comprehend, why it was that the world didn't stop entirely, why it was that people didn't gather in the streets, to talk, to indicate they knew, why it wasn't on the news, why it was that all normal functions in society, trains and the radio and normal work patterns - why everything didn't acknowledge what had happened. This silence around one's growing awareness of the finality of what has happened, and the weirdness of it, and the appallingness of it, is deafening, shocking and humbling.

I think a lot of people keep quiet because they're terrified of saying the wrong thing. But those who have been through it know that the silence is the worst thing of all

I will strive not to be a silent friend for people here. I have been "..terrified of saying the wrong thing", the false thing, the inadvertantly fake thing. I have felt paralysed by not being able to respond appropriately or senstively. However if our friendships, our community here mean anything, then I hope to do better in future. I may fall short, but I will try.