All posts filed under: Grief

On the new year, expectations and reality

Published by

I wrote my last blog post for 2015 on the 22nd of December. Two weeks and three days off to enjoy a quiet Christmas time with Emma and Alex, to take a trip down to Dublin for a bit of sale shopping and rest; to ignore the cruel arrival of another year, which takes us even further away from the memories we have of Georgie. Life is never simple anymore when you have lost a child. Occasions that make others want to celebrate make bereaved parents retreat into their shell and wish it all away. Marital conflict stops being easy to mend with an apology and a kiss it better attitude. When you survive on little energy for lengthy periods of time, like any bereaved parent does, a “silly little” fight leaves you completely drained for absolute ages. I have found myself growing totally intolerant to small talk, to respecting social and religious rules and constraints and to pleasing people. Even the closest of people. People speak of a new persona emerging after loss and …

Two Christmases

Published by

We are approaching a second Christmas without our baby boy. Well, actually, without our toddler, as Georgie should be nearly 2 now, a stroppy, funny and full of beans child and not only a memory on a shelf. We have felt, once we have completed one year onto our loss journey, that the pressure has been mounting for us to start behaving “normally”. My posts on bereavement have been getting less and less views and comments  and the interaction on my Facebook page with bereavement posts is sometimes zero. I get it, life moves on. For us, it has had to move on too, mainly because we have Emma to look after and care for but also because we have started to dare imagining a future, and not only surviving on a day to day basis. I think the turning point has been when we reached the point of what I call “no more questioning“. Acceptance. Both Alex and myself have reached a point now when we don’t want to ask the “why?” questions anymore. …

One step forward….1000 back

Published by

Grief is unpredictable, heavy and messy, the books say. To know all these facts is one thing. To live them, is another… I thought I was doing better. I thought we were maybe out of the darkest woods. But then, I got to the point where I couldn’t work outside our home. It’s okay, I said the myself, I can still do things from here. But I can’t. I have found everything such a struggle. I can manage a maximum of three days of work out of the five. I get so anxious about balancing work and caring for Emma and the house that juggling all the balls is a job in itself. I am back to waking up at night. And being so, so scared. Of the present. Of the future. Emma has kicked off again on Sunday. She told her daddy that her “mummy loves one child and it isn’t me!”, in floods or tears and rage. I went to see my GP yesterday. This time, this one was kind and understanding. She …

Children’s Grief Awareness Week UK

Published by

Last week I wrote a blog post about Emma’s struggles as a bereaved sister and Vicky, a bereaved mummy and friend, commented with information about Children’s Grief Awareness Week in the UK. Information about Children’s Grief Awareness Week can be found here, and I will let you skim it in peace, in your own time. All I will mention here is that it is organised by Grief Encounter in collaboration with the Childhood Bereavement Network and a wealth of information and resources are only a click away from the link I included above. What I feel I need to contribute to this initiative is a personal account of how difficult bereavement has been for us as a family and especially for Emma, as a sibling. I will also include what has worked for us, when it comes to grief support for Emma, and what other alternatives have been suggested to us by people who are either specialists, educators or have suffered the death of a sibling when they were young. Some of these suggestions  you …

On Death

Published by

Every so often, I imagine myself visiting with Georgie in heaven. It usually happens when I have my reflexology sessions as it is the only time I can relax deeply and give Georgie and our love a whole hour, uninterrupted. This week, I didn’t want to leave him in my imagination. I just wanted to stay there or somehow, drag him back into this world. I imagined myself sitting down with him, in a field of high-definition coloured flowers and under a magnificently wide-branched, silver tree and told him again and again how much  I missed him. And I told him that I do hope it will not be long before I get to go there too. These thoughts, before you reach for the phone and call me in panic, are not suicidal thoughts, my friend. For most people, Death is such a scary word and notion. I get it too well, I used to be the same before Georgie died. But now, Death seems more like a friend. After all, it got to take …