Compassion Spring 2022

Spring 2022 - Compassion | www.tcf.org.uk 4 Reflections from the Editor Dear Friends It’s the first day of February as I sit in the kitchen writing this and cradling a very welcome cup of tea. There are chocolate biscuits and peanuts on the table within reach in addition to the bowl of fresh fruit. I’ve been poorly recently and have lost some weight so am trying to put it back on. It’s the truth, honestly! Well I’ve made it, somehow, through Christmas and New Year - although many years have passed I still find it a difficult time. But I remember all too clearly that first New Year after my daughter, Nikki, died. I felt I was going into another year and leaving my daughter behind. I couldn’t bear it. I was totally overcome with grief. But gradually, with the help of my TCF friends and rituals we developed and cherished over the years, I began to feel I was taking both her and my son, Robin, with me into each new year. In fact, it’s more than that now. When I was poorly recently, I felt that both my children were holding me and helping me through the worst times. I wasn’t alone, they were there, with me….. it was an amazing experience and such a comfort. To those of you more recently bereaved and feel you will be swamped by massive grief for ever, I want to say this: After Nikki died I thought I would never survive. I didn’t want to wake up in the morning. I didn’t want to go through another day without her. And my feelings, my thoughts, were so strong, so bizarre… I thought I was going mad… But I wasn’t. What I had was an absolutely natural reaction to sudden trauma, to the death of my child and the symptoms I was suffering from were not only the result of massive grief but also of post traumatic stress. When my son, Robin, died, sixteen years later, from encephalitis, I was again hit by bizarre thoughts and feelings but this second time round I understood what was happening to me and knew that eventually the worst would pass. I learnt about post traumatic stress from a very informative speech given by Dr Margaret Brearley at one of our TCF weekend retreats and a shortened Gina Claye