Lynn Forbes on grief: 'It has altered my entire being'

Six months since AKA was fatally shot, his mother Lynn Forbes says she has learnt to accept grief as a part of her. 

“I’ve always believed that my heart was big and spacious with many rooms, to accommodate many people. These days I often feel like where my heart used to be there is just a big hole in my chest, without space even for myself. Grief is not something you get over, it never ends. You just learn to live with it and grow around it.

“And in the moments when it feels like the Band-Aid is being ripped off the healing wound, you start all over again ... until the next time and the next time and the next time.”

Lynn said she was still coming to terms with her loss and was grieving her own way.

“In the meantime, I’m OK with not being OK, not being a strong woman and OK leaning on those who allow me to grief on my own terms, while holding my hand and quietly walking beside me as I find my way. I accept that grief is an element of who I am now, that it has altered my entire being forever and that I don’t have to get to the other side of it. It is what it is.”

Lynn has launched a new podcast, Outspoken Owls, with close friend Katie Mohamed to shed light on what it means to be a middle-aged woman.

“We realised there's no space for the over 40s group of men and women, but we also want to appeal to younger people. We're talking about topics from menopause, dating in your 40s, things people don't normally want to talk about,” she told TshisaLIVE.