Compassion Magazine Winter 2022

Winter 2022 - Compassion | www.tcf.org.uk 15 The Gift Our eldest son, Rory, died some time on the afternoon of the 12th of June 2018, at home in his bedroom after ingesting poison he bought on the internet. He was 20 years old. His two younger brothers were at school, his mother was travelling, and I was in London. I had agreed to meet him that evening and had spoken to him around lunchtime when he seemed very upbeat and positive. However, at some point late afternoon I received a call from one of his brothers saying he had found him upon returning home, unresponsive. The journey home in a taxi from London was a blur, as was walking into his bedroom finding his body surrounded by paramedics; and the days, weeks and months that followed. Rory was lively and charming as a boy and before adolescence, but had always struggled a little bit with this world. He had started therapy sessions when he was 11 or 12 and saw a number of therapists and medical practitioners in succeeding years. He had talked openly about ending his life in his late teens, but despite this I felt that he had turned a corner at the beginning of 2018, only to find out his silence was just a cover for making his plans. I think we take some comfort from the fact that he died relatively peacefully in the family home. He made a decision with which we can never agree, but at least he did it in a place where there has always been a lot of love. I think we felt that creating this environment would be enough to stop him taking this step, but unfortunately this was not to be the case. In the weeks following his death I busied myself with work, not with any real sense of commitment or energy, just looking for things to distract me. I was