07 Oct How can it be five years?

7th October 2023

Five years ago today, Paul took this precious photo of Ben as he came towards us, smiling his beautiful smile; brushing our hands with his fingers. His last living touch.

Five years ago today Ben asked me to message deep heat into his back and shoulders. I didn’t know it was going to be the last beautiful mum thing I would ever do for him.

Five years ago today the kitchen was buzzing with excitement – everyone pinning race numbers on t-shirts and casually filling in the backs with emergency contact details – never for one minute expecting one would be needed.

Five years ago today Ben hugged us as he went out the front door for the very last time. So alive, so happy, so full of life.

(He was taking part in the Cardiff half marathon with his brothers, their partners and his girlfriend Amy. Paul, Vic and I were standing at the sidelines supporting and cheering them on.)

We had no idea this was to be his last day on our planet. His last photo – last smile – last touch – last time we would ever hear his voice. Our last day of normal.

An hour or so after the photo was taken he went into cardiac arrest. His beautiful heart stopped beating. In the blink of an eye our world imploded.

"He's gone" they said
And in that moment my heart shattered into a
million pieces
and my whole world turned black
JCH

My mind drifts back to when Steve (our eldest) was born – I remember so well savouring the awesomeness of holding that precious crinkly little bundle of humanity in my arms. Flooded with a love I didn’t know existed I was totally besotted – couldn’t stop looking at him, touching him, hugging him, kissing him. He completely stole my heart and I wondered how I could ever love another child as much as this.

Then I did!

Four times!

The miracle of being a mum is discovering that my heart has the capacity to love each of my children equally with the most incredible fierce, protective, pure, powerful, unconditional, sacrificial love. My children are simply the most amazing children in the whole world – and that’s the way it should be.

Yours are too!!

On the flip side – the death of a child is beyond anything hearts can handle. If they die, part of us dies too. It’s a life changing loss – devastating, disorienting, debilitating. A loss my mother heart will never accept or come to terms with. An unspeakable agony – a depth of pain so intense and brutal it’s indescribable.

Never in a million years could I have imagined life would turn out like this – that we would have to live on in a world without our darling precious youngest child.

“IT’S so WRONG, so profoundly wrong, for a child to die before its parents. It’s hard enough to bury our parents. But that we expect. Our parents belong to our past, our children belong to our future. We do not visualize our future without them. How can I bury my son, my future, one of the next in line? He was meant to bury me!”

– Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son

Yet life goes on and I’m still here. Still trying to function (albeit as a kind of semi functional person). Still trying to find purpose. Still trying to believe the unbelievable. Still trying to hold on to the shattered fragments of life and faith.

Still tying to get my head around the paradox that the God, who could have saved him is comforting me in my pain… ‘walking with me through the valley of the shadow of death’. Psalm 23

These last five years have been more than hard. For those who might be wondering – it doesn’t get easier! The hole in our world doesn’t get smaller. The pain doesn’t ease. The brokenness doesn’t get less broken. The shock still shocking!

I’m sure I speak for all grieving parents when I describe living every day with an ache that hurts more than physical pain – torturous sudden rememberings like a knife twisting into my heart – stuck inside a bad dream I can’t wake from. Waiting for him to come home but knowing of course – he never will. Watching in disbelief (and sometimes anger) as the world moves on without him.

Yet in the midst of all this brokenness Paul and I are somehow managing to rebuild our lives around the enormous hole where Ben should be. It’s an forever process – full of ups and downs. Some days easier than others.

Our beautiful family is incomplete but still beautiful. We try to support each other. We celebrate all the milestones of an ever growing little band of people (and dogs!). We do things to honour Ben and will always be inspired by his uninhibited joy for living. He is with us in everything. He teaches us to seize the moments! We talk about him all the time and love it when others do too.

Love holds us together and that same love keeps us connected to our darling boy. We still have four children. That doesn’t change; will never change!

So bizarrely (despite often feeling a bit like a grief pariah) I’m getting used to living with pain. I can usually smile and laugh and look happy – even when I’m not. Sometimes the happy is real but not the kind of happy it used to be. Memories are wonderful but bittersweet – he isn’t here and yet he is! We feel him in everything – the rivers, the sea, the mountains, the sunsets., the songs, the sunflowers… He brings his own special colour into our world. We are reminded every day that he existed.

Ben, we love you 💛

As always writing helps – it’s got me through this last couple of weeks. Thank you for taking the time to read.

And an even bigger thank you to all the beautiful people who have stuck with us – loving, listening, caring, talking, crying, never judging and (most importantly) not expecting us to be over it! Honestly don’t know how we would have got this far without you 🌻

💛

CREDIT: Ruth McDonald 2023

This beautiful poem by Becky Helmsley describes it so well….

The Flame

There’s an order that life is supposed to follow.

An order of breaths we are supposed to take,
as if we are passing a torch from one generation to the next.

And our torch is supposed to go out before our child’s flame is extinguished.

We are supposed to watch them take their first breath.
But not their last.

We are supposed to hear the thud-thud of their heart when it starts beating.
But never the silence when it stops.

That heart that we once carried inside of us. That breath that we gave them. That life that we kept safe, protected.

So when the order of life is disrupted,
when their torch goes out before yours,
it is as if you too have been robbed of your breath
and as if your heart has stopped beating as well.

There is nothing that can make it less painful.
You would happily blow out your flame if it meant theirs could burn. 

But you can’t. Even though that’s how it should be.

So all you can do is carry them inside you - 
like you did once before. 
Except now they have to stay in your heart forever.

And though it hurts,
just know that they are safe there. 
They are protected.

Because a mother’s love is unending.
Because it burns forever with every breath you take and 
with every beat your heart makes.

Because a mother’s love
is a flame that can 
never
be extinguished.

💛

beckyhemsley.com