Child Grief Awareness Week

At the end of Child Grief Awareness Week, I’ve been thinking so much about my own children and the effect that losing a loved one, especially a sibling, has on a child and how losing Ben has impacted all our lives; especially my girls.

Sometimes, as a parent, we can be so caught up in our own grief, overwhelmed by every waking moment of loss surrounding our existence, that we don’t always see what’s going on right under our noses.

As a child of divorced parents and of a mother, who was abandoned by her husband, my sister and I took on the role of cheerleader and support absent-mindedly at the age of three and four years old. It is something that only now, in my year’s worth (so far) of grief counselling, that I can fully begin to understand. The loss of a parent, albeit not through dying, was still one that profoundly affected my existence from a young age. Growing up without him around affected many aspects of my life and it’s only now, now that he himself has passed, that I can honestly see the hugely upsetting impact not having a Dad around really had on me.

I didn’t realise that throughout my own childhood, I was always trying to please others, make sure home life ran as smoothly as possible, that I wasn’t going to be left again, or excluded or let down. Sadly, for my sister and I, our father continually let us down through our growing up years and we continued to fight for equilibrium and balance in our lives.

I never wanted to see my own children experience the heartache and loss and ups and downs I had through my own childhood.

In 2017, my father died unexpectedly and just at a point in my life, finally, my mid-forties, when he and I had come to an understanding. The children were in love with their grandad, who would visit and we would go out for walks and laugh and chat. My dad recognised that he had put his second family first, but had always loved us. He had known that our relationship had always been different. I had never wavered in my love for my Dad, although I was heartbroken he had walked away from his family home into the arms of a teenager at the time, but I had had no choice, but to accept his decision. Tough at the age of four years old.

A year after my father’s death and all the turmoil that brought from his second family, which my children unfortunately were also aware of, even though I’d tried to keep so much from them; out of the blue came cancer.

Cancer threw a whole load of unexpected chaos and uncertainty into our lives, on top of the already turgid mess my father had left for myself and my sister to clear up, with no help or thanks from any of his second family.

Cancer split up my family for some of Ben’s treatment and caused all manner of heartache and the dreadful thing, is that my beautiful girls saw and felt it all. Children are so perceptive. We sometimes overlook their feelings in the pursuit of doing the right thing.

I had no choice, but to be by Ben’s side (time shared with my husband) throughout his treatment. With cancer, there is no choice; any decisions are taken out of your control, when one of your children’s lives are threatened. Unfortunately, for their siblings, life in general is completely disrupted and all that they were focusing on, is thrown into disarray. Their mum and dad are being pulled in to meeting after meeting; there are hospital trips, sleepovers, siblings are brought along for the ride. None of it is their decision or choice and so it’s no wonder that resentment, heartache, anger and frustration all play a part in the journey.

Cancer is a thief. It steals loved ones and it breaks apart families and crushes relationships; not always, but cancer for us has certainly left visible scars that will never heal and has brought us closer together, but also left some bittersweet memories and some unspoken anger. This anger and upset can lie dormant in each of us, but especially in children, as they try to work through their own feelings, memories and experiences of all that happens when a sibling is going through something so frightening and upsetting as cancer.

If a sibling then dies, children see their parents’ grief first hand; their mum and dad might not be the parents they used to be in lots of ways and that might be hard to understand. The children left behind might also have their own worries about their mum and dad’s health and wellbeing and whether or not they might feel happy at all themselves.

Life has gone from normal and fun, to messy, isolated and lonely in a the blink of an eye.

It is really hard to navigate, all of it. It’s like this ever undulating ocean, without land in sight. It’s full of sparkles of fun and relative normality on some days and then the darkness envelops us all again and we are sucked into this strange duality where nothing makes sense, nothing fits and expressing our feelings becomes this disjointed, broken shambles of misunderstandings and heartbreak all over again.

I feel so sad for my girls and also so incredibly proud of them, too. Both my husband and I have days where we feel rudderless and helpless, totally unproductive and just sail along in the breeze of the day. It will be the same for our girls and I just hope in years to come, despite these ups and downs, that they feel grounded and totally loved and supported and know we are trying our best. Every day.

Sending my love to all bereaved families, always.