Last week Caroline Ryan talked about the grief she felt at the loss of both her parents within a short time of each other, and how other people's reactions helped or hindered her. This week, one listener to Home Truths recorded a message, anonymously, on our answering machine, telling us how unexpressed grief for the loss of someone close eventually caught up with her half a century later...

"Nothing in the past used to make me cry,and I did wonder about that until in 1994. I came home that day and went to bed and fell fast asleep as ususal. I woke to find find my pillow soaking wet. I thought there was a leak in the ceiling or something. I found myself sobbing my heart out. The grief was for my first love who had been killed in 1945 just before the end of the war. I’d never cried for him and went to work as usual, as we all had to. They sent my picture back, all bent and tattered. When I opened the letter my photo fell on the floor, and I thought, ‘Oh, he didn’t love me anymore…' Anyway, I went to work as usual and never ever cried for him until fifty years later. It was just the most awful thing, but good in a way, I suppose, for me.

It's the kind of thing you can’t talk about. You try and hide it because it seems too ridiculous for words to be grieving fifty years on. Having people know that you’re grieving, and sympathising with you is wonderful, but to grieve alone because you’re too ashamed, or people think you’re silly, or having a nervous breakdown, is very hard…"