Grief, Like Love, Is All Consuming

I think today I hit that invisible brick wall that people speak of where you can’t put it off any longer; you can’t go another day without being able to utter out loud that you are simply not ok. I’ve let myself be in that moment this afternoon; one that I usually refuse to go near.

I don’t care for negativity and those who are ‘glass half-empty’ folk usually. It has never worked for me and now I begin to wonder why I haven’t been honest with myself?

Grief is hard. Losing a child is hard. Putting it into words is virtually impossible.

Today is the day I’ve finally admitted to myself that I’m not the person I used to be. I have said it before, but now I really acknowledge it. I’ve welcomed it into my home like an old friend. I’ve spent months trying to rise above the incessant numbness, the feeling of being ungrounded, unstable, fragile, broken, lost and vulnerable and today, I hit the tidal wave … or should I say, it hit me.

I feel lost. I feel quiet. I feel like I need to be invisible for a while; close the shutters and just focus on breathing.

There is nothing I could have done to save my beautiful boy, although in those final moments for him, I did just that; I tried to save him. I couldn’t. It’s the worst feeling in the world; to know that life for my son just continued however it was going to and ended in a way that I had absolutely no control over; no say and no amount of love in all our hearts, could heal the damage that Leukaemia did. If it was as simple as loving him to pieces and he would be healed, then he would definitely be here today.

I look at my beautiful daughters and goodness, they’ve been through so much in their young lives, even before Ben was diagnosed we were in grief, dealing with the sudden loss of my father and the nonsense I had of trying to sort out his estate. People can be so strange in grief. The anger that was thrust upon me and observed by my children was something I wonder now, if those people had known what was about to happen, if they might have had a kinder word to speak to me. I was trying to right by my Dad and I wonder what he would have thought of the mess he left for me and my sister to clear up now and the reaction from those he spent his life with?

Water under the bridge now, but as I look at my own grief, I see how anger and frustration can play a part, but all I see is love.

My girls share so much of the wit and humour of their brother and I hear his laugh within their own on occasion. It’s not the sort of childhood I had envisaged for my three and my heart is still in shock, as we manage on some days and less in others. I am amazed and humbled by their tenacity and creativity and sheer determination to continue as best they can, knowing our lives are irrevocably changed.

I am broken into a million pieces and the loss of a child is so different from that of a parent. The loss of a child is something that is not in the normal order of things, it’s more shocking and brutal and unimaginable. I have lost both a parent and a child and it is not the same.

I will hide away for a day or two, try to recoup, meditate, breathe and find a little sparkle in my own soul to keep going; always mindful of my two daughters and all that they still need and all that they teach me on a daily basis, as to how to cope. They really are incredible and I am so proud of them.

No-one invited cancer in, it just crept up like a shadow and took away our beloved son and brother and has touched our lives forever, leaving the greatest void.

As much as I will hide away, just writing this down, I find again, that somewhere inside I must have the strength of an army. I will not be defined by cancer with a small c and cancer will never take away my motherhood and love for all three of my children.

Grief, like love, is all consuming, but there is always light, even if it takes a while to see it.

Sending love out to all bereaved parents and siblings xxxxx

West Wittering Beach at Sunset