How a tweet about a dad's jumper started an international outpour of feelings

When Rachael Prior walked through Marks & Spencer, she was hit by an unexpected wave of grief.

"Nowhere and no time do I miss my dad more acutely than in the men’s department of M&S at Christmas," she wrote on Twitter.

Image: Twitter/@ORachaelO

"If I see another reasonable priced, deep red angora mix sweater with a ribbon round it I’m going to actually have a breakdown."

Image: Twitter/@ORachaelO

Her father, Lynton Shackleton Prior, died 10 years ago.

But that's what grief is like – it doesn't pay much attention to timelines. And it's the smallest and most harmless things that bring it back.

"I caught sight of this cosy red jumper and thought it was the sort of thing my late father would love," Prior told the BBC.

"I'd have picked it for him and I could imagine his face in that moment."

Something about Prior's tweet captured the weird banality and deep pain of losing a parent.

Immediately memories from other Twitter users started pouring in; to date, Prior's original tweet has received over 2000 replies and been liked close to 15,000 times.

And there might be lots of lovely moments on Twitter, but honestly, this is really up there.

"Oh, this. Solidarity, pal," one Twitter user wrote.

"My kryptonite is literally any useless object made of pewter which can be engraved with initials for a small extra cost."

Image: Twitter/@JM_Underwood

As hundreds of tiny, trivial, heartbreaking dad moments came rolling in, he added another.

"This just made my heart jump into my mouth. When Dad died, we found in his "workshop" a biscuit tin carefully labelled 'String: too short'."

Image: Twitter/@JM_Underwood

M&S, it turns out, was reading along as well.

Image: Twitter/@marksandspencer

“I was particularly struck by how all our loved ones seem to be emotionally entangled in the most seemingly benign, prosaic, even comical things: a jar of string, old nails, a Topic bar, a butter knife or a bag of liquorice allsorts," Prior told Huffington Post UK.

“It means these reminders are all around us, all the time. We’re all silently grieving.

"I think it was nice for a moment, that people didn’t feel they had to be silent about the little things that stir up such huge emotions.”

But her unexpected moment of fame didn't stop there.

Lynton had been a school headmaster, and an old student got in touch to tell Prior she remembered his kindness and care.

Image: Twitter/@SamanthaErica87

She wasn't the only one.

"My mum is now in touch with an old friend from Yorkshire who used to hang out with her and my dad," Prior wrote the day after the first tweet.

Image: Twitter/@ORachaelO

I'm with JK Rowling on this one: "Twitter really is wonderful sometimes," she reflected.

Image: Twitter/@jk_rowling

Yep. Yep yep yep. 

If you're struggling with grief, or want to know how to reach out to someone who might be feeling it in the lead-up to Christmas, there are plenty of resources such as The Australian Centre for Grief and Bereavement or Beyond Blue.

Listen to the latest episode of 9Honey's podcast series Life Bites here:

https://omny.fm/shows/9honey-life-bites/part-2-panda-perinatal-depression-and-anxiety-awar/embed?style=artwork