Compassion Autumn 2022

Autumn 2022 - Compassion | www.tcf.org.uk 17 After Helen After Helen … One of the things we have learned, in the past three and a half years, is that life, more than ever, is carried on in layers. The surface layer is the bright face we adopt in public - the smile and greeting at the checkout, for the postie, a passing dog walker - “Hi, all right?”, “Fine, thanks. And you?” Then there’s the middle layer, the one we wear with family and friends. Other people’s children, we chat with them about school, their friends, what they’d like for Christmas, keeping up appearances to protect them from the pain they will, inevitably, encounter at some time in the future. There’s the reassuring way we speak with the old, that we’re coping, no need to worry about us. Maybe that’s a mistake, even patronising? They have been here longer, seen more, felt more. Perhaps we should ask for their support, a support born of experience and maturity. Friends and family who are our contemporaries probably see more of the truth, the times when we look away or change the subject, because something has triggered the sharp, painful reaction we hope is diminishing but which still ambushes us, unlooked for. And there are the times when we deliberately bring our lost daughter into the conversation because she still matters and we do not want her to be ignored and so lost again. The third layer is the one we experience in private, when the tears can’t be held back, when the memories are too much, when the thought of her lost future is too painful, when we no longer hope to wake up and find it was all a nightmare. It doesn’t just happen in the night, when we can’t sleep. It sneaks in during daylight, triggered by a scent, a song, coming across a photo mislaid in a drawer or catching a glimpse of someone who resembles her. None of this pain can be avoided and even a