Compassion, Winter 2021

Winter 2021 - Compassion | www.tcf.org.uk 11 The cavernous hole of loss and pain is still here, comprising by far the largest proportion of my conscious and unconscious world. It’s still as deep and as black as it was on that first day, realising that I would never see or hold my son again. But over the past 2 years I have slowly redefined my relationship with the hole. In those early months of alternating shock and horror I was at the very bottom, surrounded by darkness and unable to see even a minute pinprick of light or hope. Very slowly, haltingly, tiny glimmers of light gradually illuminated footholds that allowed me to clamber out of the hole some days; though I couldn’t stay on the surface for long before I lost my hold and slithered down again. Over many months, I began to spend longer at the borders of the hole, figuring out ways in which I could avoid the slide back downwards. That time spent around the edges slowly extended, as I allowed other things to grow around me. Those first little pricks of light reaching down into the darkness were provided by those who had gone before me. Those mothers and fathers who have lost beloved sons and daughters, and somehow survived, provided tiny seeds of hope that there can be life after loss. But the very first inkling of this came from my younger son who, in utter despair in the days after losing his brother and lifelong best friend, said to me “Mum, I’ve been thinking. This, sadly, happens to a lot of people. That means there must be ways of surviving it” . These wise words have stayed with me, and have proven to be true; there are ways to survive. But I couldn’t do this alone. My amazing family and friends have held me in my bleakest moments, have listened and born witness to my pain, have offered constancy, love, companionship, hugs, kind thoughts, daily messages, and faith in my capacity to prevail. Members of The Compassionate Friends, all bereaved parents walking their own journeys of grief, developing lives around their own black holes, have reached out to offer hope and compassion. More latterly, my wonderful therapist has helped me begin to renegotiate my relationship with loss, and to reconsider my future.