Compassion, Spring 2021

Spring 2021 - Compassion | www.tcf.org.uk 26 Talking to my Son When Sophie Pierce’s 20-year-old son Felix died suddenly and unexpectedly, she found that writing letters to him helped her grieve. As all bereaved parents know, there is a Before. And there is an After. Before is the time when life was normal. When our lives were like everyone else’s. After is when everything changed forever, when life entered a different phase. For me, After started on March 9th 2017. My son Felix was found dead in his room at university, after being out of touch with his friends for a few days. As you can imagine, the shock was absolutely devastating. Suddenly, our world was turned upside down, all our certainties gone. An inquest concluded that Felix had died of SUDEP – sudden unexpected death in epilepsy. We found the loss of our beautiful son totally incomprehensible. He was just starting out in life, loving university and growing in assurance, after difficult teenage years when his epilepsy had affected his confidence. He was acting on stage – a great achievement for someone with epilepsy, who could have a seizure at any time – and writing scripts. His death made no sense. Very soon after Felix died, I found myself writing letters to him in a big notebook. It had previously been a diary but it became the precious vessel of my new relationship with Felix, a relationship in words scribbled on the page. I turned to the book every day, to ‘talk’ to him, and also talk to myself, to try and comprehend this terrible thing which had happened. It was a relief to talk to him, to tell him how I was feeling, to tell him how the world had reacted to his death. As time passed, I also found comfort in looking back over the book, going over what had happened, and seeing how my feelings were developing. For me, the writing was therapeutic, in that, both in writing things down, and in reading them some time later, I was able to get some perspective on what was going on. To feel a little more in control perhaps, and to find a way out of devastating grief. Another thing that has been incredibly therapeutic for me is getting outside. I have always loved walking and wild swimming, and these activities have become even more important to me than they were before. Somehow I feel that when I am out, appreciating the beauty of nature and the earth, I am connected to Felix, that he and I are part of this wider environment.