Childless Parents Newsletter, Autumn 2020

Newsletter for Childless Parents | www.tcf.org.uk 3 Thank you Jacqui for this lovely piece. I wanted to write something, to help me in some way, or help others, but I didn’t know where to start. I had been sitting at the computer over and over again but nothing seemed to come. Then I stumbled across an Instagram story that led me to Alicia Cook, and her book “Stuff I’ve been feeling lately” and then to Track Seventy Four, excerpts of which follow. This poem hit home and then the words flowed. Whether they make sense or not is another matter, and I will let you decide! “I am the most put-together broken person you will ever come across, with hairline fractures so fine, my skin remains smooth to the touch. I see I am shattered, broken shards placed together and called art, a mosaicked woman.” … … “There was a time I laughed more, was more light-hearted and whimsical. There was a time I smiled more than in pictures.” Since my beautiful Becca died, I have repeatedly spoken of being broken, and not knowing if, when, or how I could be “fixed”. I wondered whether there would be some magic day that would come and suddenly things would seem a little more okay? Would the waves of grief stop overwhelming me at random moments of random days? Would I have more days when I “could” than “could not”? I soon realised that I can never be “fixed”, the fact is I will never be Kintsugi