Childless Parents Newsletter, Autumn 2020

Newsletter for Childless Parents | www.tcf.org.uk 5 have come to realise that giving myself permission to think and do what I need is not selfish, it is necessary. If my friend doesn’t understand then I just remember that they are lucky enough not to know how hard this journey is, and how lonely we all feel despite all the support we may have around us. In a very tongue-in-cheek way, I used to refer to myself as “practically perfect in every way” like Mary Poppins but now I choose to see myself as perfectly imperfect. I won’t list all my “faults” but I know I have at least as many as each of you. The fact is, however, that I am a good person at heart, doing the best I can in an awful situation. However wrong I may get things the fact is I am me, and that is all I can be. I am so busy “surviving” this that I cannot expect to be anything more than perfectly imperfect. I still have my moments where I question what I am doing, question my sanity quite frankly, but they are much fewer and further between because accepting my shortcomings has been such a blessing. I think almost every human sees themselves as a little bit broken, very few of us feel whole and happy, and feel we, and our lives are “perfect”. I believe we are all a little hard on ourselves and maybe, just maybe, we don’t have to be “strong” or “capable” or any of those other words that people have called us since our children died. I definitely don’t see myself as strong, I don’t care if “diamonds are formed under pressure”, I do not give a monkey if you “don’t think you could cope”. I am not strong, I am no diamond, I have no choice but to cope. I am just a grieving mother surviving the “what ifs”, the wonder, the wealth of emotions and the memories in her head each day. I am a grieving mother choosing to wake up each day and put both feet on the floor, one foot in front of the other, and survive another day as best she can. I think we are all surviving, all perfectly imperfect in our own ways, all works of Kintsugi in the making, and that’s okay. Jacqui