22 tcf.org.uk COMPASSION | FEATURE - TEN YEARS OF GRIEF Ten Years of Grief by Paul Wilenius (Former BBC and Fleet Street newspaper journalist) Paul and Alison Wilenius’s son Daniel died a decade ago and they have been coping with the terrible grief of that loss ever since. But the Compassionate Friends group in Swindon has been the one organisation which has helped them to come to terms with that grief. "We lost our boy Daniel 10 years ago on November 28th. He was only 4 days short of his 35th birthday, and it was the most devastating event in the lives of my wife Alison, daughter Laura and me. Out of a clear blue sky, we were hit with a devastating emotional hurricane. In an instant our lives changed forever, and we have never really returned to the life we had before he died of a cardiac arrest. We were once a family of four who laughed, travelled and grew together. Then suddenly we were only three, left with only memories of our funny, beautiful, sport loving and kind son and brother. In some ways it seems like only yesterday, but at other times it seems it was a lifetime ago. For someone who has never lost a child, they may think that after ten years we would be over it. Many would assume that over that length of time, grief fades, that the pain has eased and you can just go back to living in the same way you had before. Nothing could be further from the truth. As everyone who has lost a child will know, you never get over it. At any time, any day, any week, any month it can hit you, and sometimes like a sledgehammer. You can listen to a piece of music, look at a photograph, or a video, wander into their old room, see someone who looks like them, or for no reason whatsoever you get a sudden feeling of deep sadness or longing, and then the tears flow. Indeed, I have been walking down the road and for no reason started to well up and cry, or I can feel breathless, or have a dull twisted knot in my stomach. It is like you are overtaken by a nameless darkness or anxiety. There is no amount of support or counselling which can change that. It’s just part of grief. So no, you can never get over it. But you can learn to live with this terrible grief. You can learn slowly but surely to cope with it. You can let the grief and the pain become part of your life. Of course, the intensity of the pain does ease. It’s the soothing waves of time which help. But every single day I think about him, sometimes many times. I don’t cry every day, as I did in the beginning. Now I realise that I don’t want to get over the death of my son, as I want him here with me. I want to be able to embrace the hurt and the pain, to remember how much I love him and miss him. It gives me comfort. But I have to admit that it’s hard to come to terms with grief on your own, and this where Compassionate Friends comes in.
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