06 Mar I thought I could never survive the death of a child… I’m still not sure I can!

I’ve heard it said many times ‘I wouldn’t survive if something happened to one of my children’. ‘I don’t think I could keep on living ‘. ‘I’d probably go mad.’ ‘I wouldn’t be able to cope!’

I’ve probably used some of those words myself

Then one day it happened to me.

Almost sixteen months ago an indescribable tsunami of devastating pain hit our family. It is the deepest and darkest sadness I have ever known. My mother heart shattered into thousands of pieces. Irreparably.

No warning, no illness. One minute Ben was alive. Then he wasn’t.

Part of me died that day and I have had to relearn how to live with a broken heart.

Twenty five years with the most wonderful child any parent could ever wish for. Then it was over. We all clung to memories and photographs as though our very lives depended on them. They were and still are our lifeline.

Don’t get me wrong. I have four children who are all awesome!! No ‘one’ is more special than the other. I can’t and don’t want to imagine life without any of them.

I still find it hard to believe this most brutal horrific unimaginable nightmare is actually real and my darling precious youngest child has left us forever.

Accepting this Is like accepting that the earth is square. Impossible!

I guess I always subconsciously assumed that things like this only happened to other people; but as one of my children intuitively pointed out – ‘we are all someone else to someone else’.

It happened to us!

We instantly became that someone else!

I’ve hit a low that I didn’t know existed. A low so horrific that although I’m alive, I feel dead. My spark has gone. In fact, being dead is an option I would willingly choose if it wasn’t for the pain I know it would cause my already broken family.

Groundhog Day must be real!! I relive the moment that turned our world upside down – over and over again.

However horrific, I hold onto that terrible day because it was the last time I touched him. It holds our last hug, the last sound of his beautiful voice and his wonderful infectious laugh. The last time we would ever eat breakfast together and the last time he would ever walk out our front door. The last time we would ever be a complete normal family and feel truly happy.

But… it also holds the vision of my handsome man child lying still and lifeless on a hospital bed. It holds the memory of the unsmiling doctor telling us they did all they could; showing us a photo of his tattoo to confirm it was really our boy before taking us to him. It holds the brain freeze and numbness that crushed our bodies and stopped us from breathing, as we tried to accept words that made no sense and a surreal image we didn’t want to believe. Our beautiful boy couldn’t be dead. He was alive and vibrant and happy just an hour or so earlier.

That day with all its desperate sadness is slipping further and further away. I never thought I would feel jealous of another grieving parent but when I hear that someone’s child died just weeks or months ago I’m secretly envious because our days, weeks and months are turning into years. I want to stop the clock or better still, rewind it! I can’t bear to be living in a year number that he isn’t part of.

I desperately try to keep him alive by holding on to those precious memories but they also bring unbearable pain as I know we can never make new ones.

The brutal truth is – he’s dead. I can’t change that. Its simply going to hurt like hell for the rest of my life.

I often wonder about healing. What does that mean? Am I going to suddenly feel better one day and start to ‘move on’? Will I ever accept living without my darling boy? It’s probably what people (who haven’t lost a child) assume should be happening.

The question is… do I even want to heal as grief and love seem to go hand in hand? Would it seem like betrayal? It’s been sixteen months and the pain is still as raw as ever. In fact it’s actually getting harder not easier to live without him.

I was once one of those people who probably said they could never survive the death of their child!!

So… am I surviving?

Not really but I have no choice but to keep trying.

Am I still living?

Yes I’m alive but not alive at the same time. I go to work – I shop I cook I clean but part of me is dead!

Am I going mad?

Yes probably! At times I behave in ways that are extreme and very different from the person I used to be.

Am I coping?

Just about! I’m limping along – one day at a time and relying on love to get me through.

But I take comfort in knowing I belong to an incredible army of survivors – people who feel just as I do. We share an invisible bond that is inexplicable but real. We know what this pain and heartache feels like and we give each other permission to grieve for as long as we need!!

‘Even as I rocked on my knees, howling, I detected soft breathing behind the roaring. I leaned in, listened. It was the murmuring of ten million mothers, backward and forward in time and right now, who had lost children. They were lifting me, holding me. They had woven a net of their broken hearts, and they were keeping me safe there. I realised that one day I would take my rightful place as a link in this web, and I would hold my sister-mothers when their children died. For now my only task was to grieve and be cradled in their love.’

Excerpt from Caravan of No Despair