Compassion, Autumn 2020

Autumn 2020 - Compassion | www.tcf.org.uk 10 There’s a country song called ‘Letter to Me’ by Brad Paisley and listening to it while driving home last week, it got me thinking about what I would say to the me, sat at home, broken, on 12th January 2018, the day after Evie died. What advice would I give, looking back at the last two and a bit years? There wouldn’t be any revelations, no silver bullet and certainly no cure. But what pitfalls would I warn about? What would I say? Dear Me, With the fabulous benefit of 20/20 hindsight, can I help you avoid some of the excruciating pain that you know is coming? Can I protect you from the hurt of others, from the bewilderment, the exhaustion, the utter confusion? Can I save you from yourself sometimes? As much as I might like to, I can’t, because even if I manage to head off some of the pain, it will only be replaced by something else. But what I can do is try to convince you now, that you are truly not alone, that every step of the way, someone will be there when you need them. I can also tell you categorically that you are going to make mistakes, lots of them, and that’s okay, just learn from them. But most of all, I need you to understand that your love for Evie will carry you through everything. It will give you the strength when the darkness is overwhelming, when there seems to be no point carrying on, when the black dog sits with you, begging you to follow him. No father has loved a daughter more and that love will stay as strong forever. You will undoubtedly throw yourself at work, trying to convince yourself that you can still succeed at something, anything, trying desperately to compensate for the fact that, in your mind at least, you failed to keep Evie alive. That you failed as a father. You won’t believe me now that there was nothing that you could have done to change the end result, but that’s a Bryan Clover Writes to his Early Bereaved Self