Compassion Summer 2023

14 tcf.org.uk If you have recently lost your darling child – I’m so, so sorry. Right now you can probably hardly breathe; you’re numb yet everything hurts; you’ve cried more tears than you ever thought possible and your soul is physically mentally and emotionally exhausted. It’s like you’ve been washed up on a beach – alive, but only just. You can’t imagine how you’re going to get through another day – let alone a week, month, year, the rest of your life, without your child. Every atom in your body screams for them and you think you could be going crazy. You’re agitated, in denial and angry at the unfairness of it all. You wonder how any parent can possibly survive such pain. This year (October 2023) we will have survived five years without Ben (the youngest of our four children). Grief is very personal – we’re doing it our way, at our pace and will keep doing it for as long as we need. There are no rules and what works for us, might not work for you. Losing a child is agonising, brutal, annihilating and survival isn’t easy. Words can’t adequately describe the devastation that literally turns your world upside down and inside out! It hurts deep down in the very core of your soul and leaves an empty space that nothing and no one can fill. An empty space that will stay forever! Ben was 25 when he suddenly died. He wasn’t ill, had no health conditions and was very fit. One day, without any warning his heart just stopped (SADS). We never even got the chance to say goodbye. In those hazy early days all we could feel was the most excruciating debilitating pain. I couldn’t sit still, sleep at the right Getting good (better) at feeling bad by Ruth McDonald My son Ben died in October 2018 - he was 25 super fit, adventurous and healthy. He collapsed and went into cardiac arrest as he crossed the finish line of the Cardiff half marathon. Despite immediate response from medics who did CPR and defibrillator he died before we got to the hospital. As you can imagine we were and still are devastated. I started writing straight away as it was the only way I could keep myself sane. I was encouraged to set up a Facebook page and blog website called ‘the one moment’. Before my son died I hardly used social media… now I’m a member of four very different bereaved parents Facebook groups - which quite frankly have been my lifeline. I don’t know how I would have survived without the care and support of virtual friends carrying their own torturous pain. And every time a new parent joins we instinctively reach out. We feel their pain and desperation. There is no fixing… so we don’t try. But we listen. We empathise. We share experiences and tell them to take a minute at a time; to cry, scream, rant, to talk about their darling child. So if you’re hanging on by a thread or you know someone who is - this blog might help (a little). tcf.org.uk/gettinggoodbetteratfeelingbad Extracts frommy blog COMPASSION | FEATURE - GETTING GOOD (BETTER) AT FEELING BAD