Compassion, Summer 2020

Summer 2020 - Compassion | www.tcf.org.uk 9 about three months to the gallon in petrol at the moment so have a bit of money to spare. Some very interesting books have been sent to me by their authors. Simon Bray has sent a book called Loved and Lost which allows various members of the family to relate their experience of grief. I’ll write more about this next time but, in the meantime, you can look at Simon’s ‘Loved and Lost’ project at www.lovedandlostproject.co.uk Another book sent to me, which I finally have time to enjoy, is Barbara Wilson’s The Story of a Clinical Neuropsychologist. Barbara has been a very active and supportive member of TCF since her daughter Sarah’s death in 2000 and many of you will have read First Year Worst Year: coping with the unexpected death of our grown up daughter. I also have Andrea Corrie’s second book Living in the Mourning Light although I have actually sent that to a reader who was very keen to read it and will read it myself when it arrives back. Quite a few of our old favourites like Our Children, Aspects of Loss, For the Love of Mike, Don’t Let Them Tell You How To Grieve and A Manual for Heartache, are at home with me as well as books about PTSD and a few addressing bereavement by suicide and some others so am able to run a limited library service from here. I’ve sent out a few parcels from home already and would love to help as many people as I can, especially newly bereaved people who are unable to get out and meet people at the moment. It would help me greatly if, before you send parcels back, you would contact me so I can give you my home address to send them to. Hopefully it will be business as usual soon and, in the meantime, I’ll do the best I can. To finish, I’ve taken a poem from a non-library book. It’s called These Are The Hands and is an anthology of poetry written by NHS workers. There’s so much news about death at the moment, which is very upsetting, and it’s especially heart rending to think of people dying alone. I think the case of the 13 year old boy was particularly heart breaking. I was a nurse for 50 years and I know very well that we don’t allow our patients to die alone if we can possibly help it. We feel grief for our patients too, even though it’s nothing like the grief we feel as parents. I remember, when my own daughter died, many of the nurses and doctors were in tears and, even in the depths of grief and shock and despair, I appreciated that. So this poem is called ‘We mourn your children too’ and it’s written by paediatrician, Vicky Thomas. Although her patients are obviously children, she could be talking about anyone, of any age, especially those who leave a grief stricken parent to mourn them. We mourn your children too. We do. We cry. We try to make each touch a loving one – for short lives should be full of love. We cry. We do. We try to keep our grief walled up, not stealing yours. To meet your eyes steadily. To find the Joy wherever it can fall. We cry. We try. We do. We’re honoured when we help you say goodbye. The farewells break us too; the cracks are how the light gets out. You hate us, love us, hug us, blame us. You wonder how we do it. So do we. We try. We cry. We mourn your children too. Amen to that, With love from Mary