National Bereaved Parents Day 2022
The Compassionate Friends are once again supporting National Bereaved Parents Day on 3 July 2022.
This year National Bereaved Parents Day will take place on Sunday 3rd July to raise awareness of parental grief. On this day and throughout July (Bereaved Parents Month) we will be remembering all bereaved parents and who are bereaved of a child of any age and from any cause.
Please join us to help spread the message, keep that conversation going, raise awareness and show the bereaved parent community that they are NOT alone.
A poem for Jess
After our 14 year old daughter Jess died from primary bone cancer on the 8th December 2010, my sister Julie Cowling wrote this beautiful poem to remember her. It was inspired by the long distance walks our family and friends have done in her memory (Jess loved to be outside), along with hints of the films she loved to watch when she was younger. The freedom and exhilaration of the young stallion in Disney’s `Spirit’, and the respect for nature and spirituality of `Pocahontas’. We read the poem, which we know off by heart, whenever we reach the highest point or most beautiful view on our walks. On more than one occasion, we have been amazed to find wild horses and once even some distant dolphins keeping us company. Julie’s friend Claire Pickford painted a series of pictures to illustrate the poem, which gradually build to form the complete image. A circle of life, where we `walk to the edge of the world’ for Jess and `whisper her name’.
Jess' mum, Shirley Gower
`Spirit’
I walk to the edge of the world just to see you again
but you are not there and so I whisper your name.
It is nature that replies with a strong gust of wind.
Nature takes hold of your name and your journey begins.
It sends you through oceans
on the backs of whales and on dolphins’ fins.
Birds hold you in their beaks
and sprinkle you from their wings.
Horses they gallop,
spreading you with thundering hooves.
All with Spirit in their meaning
determined to prove …
that your name will be whispered all over the world
and wherever we now tread
you will be known and waiting somehow.
This nature, these animals, this journey
they will all meet
at the edge of the world only this time, complete.
But because of your smile your beauty and your strength
your journey has no ending and will start once again.
I walk to the edge of the world just to see you again
and you ARE there and so I whisper your name.
Copyright © Julie Cowling 2020
Safina's story
Safina lost her son Joe aged 23 in sudden unexpected unexplained circumstances on 22nd September 2019. She shares here a video about the beautiful balcony garden she has made for Joe.
Tracie's story
This is one of many ways we remember our precious son Richard who passed suddenly from a cardiac arrest aged 22 in 2012.
A wonderful friend, who lost her 18 year old daughter in the same way only a month later made this for us. Richard’s favourite colour was orange so we always have to hand orange paper. We write funny or poignant or any memories that we have of him and people are always welcome to write something that may have come back to them that they had forgotten.
I read them every now and then and laugh and cry but it keeps memories of him safe.
Tracie, Richard's mum
Maggie's story
My son Dylan was an Arborist and dreamed of owning a woodland, so we knew how we could best honour him in death.
We planted 50 trees as part of a Reforesting Programme in Oxfordshire, with Sylva Foundation.
We’ve used one of the marker posts as a Ribbon Post, marking the first year after Dylan’s death. We held a ceremony there with friends and family, and each of us tied a ribbon to the post. And another of the posts have a wooden carving with Dylan’s name on it. The trees were planted in February 2017, and in June that year all the poppies came out. It hasn’t happened again. It was quite a sight.
In Northumberland, where we live now, we have planted an
apple tree for Dylan in an organic orchard created by a local farmer as a place
for memorials. There’s a plaque I made in Clay, set in wood, next to the
sapling with Dylan’s name on it.
We also bought a wooden bench for the
orchard, and attached a plaque to it.
Dylan’s friends in New Zealand placed a bench with a plaque on the top of a hill, a popular place for bikers, and we went a year later to plant a native tree next to it, and leave some of his ashes in the soil with the tree.
Blue Spirit Sailing Bursaries
My son, Laury, died by suicide from suspected schizophrenia on 1st July 2020 and a friend and I have set up a bursary fund to help young people go sailing.
One in four people will face a mental health challenge at some stage in their life, and none are more affected these days than our youth. At the same time, research has shown that being in blue spaces (like the sea) can have a positive effect on stress reduction and wellbeing.
This is why the Blue Spirit – Laury Gratiet Bursary Fund – set up in memory of Laury – grants sailing bursaries to young people aged 18 to 25 who are experiencing a mental health challenge or facing social/economic disadvantage.
A video about Laury and the fund is below.
Solen, Laury's mum
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