Newsletter for parents bereaved of only child or children Autumn 2022

TCF Newsletter | www.tcf.org.uk 5 Are we nearly there yet? Do you remember those words whenever you undertook a journey with your child? They always stuck terror into me and often led to the empty threat to turn the car around and go home if my boys didn’t stop moaning or playing tap-tap until one of them shrieked in pretend pain. We never did stop the car though, of course, and eventually arrived fraught and exhausted at a campsite nestled in the French countryside. We silently erected the tent, found the kettle, the stove and pumped up the air beds while the boys, who had eventually slept and were full of energy, checked out the pool, the tennis courts, the bar and the girls! And, so it was! Each year we eventually arrived ‘there’, whether it was the Dordogne, the Ardeche, the Alps, or Italy - that year’s journey’s end. There! As I go through my second summer without both of my boys, I find myself remembering those long journeys to find the sun and some relaxation. I reflect that the journey I am now on is a journey where I don’t know where I’m going. I have no map, no noisy car full of noisy boys, and there’s no peace or sunshine ahead of me. How I wish someone would threaten to turn me around and take me back to those summers long ago. “Am I nearly there yet?”, I often asked my exhausted self, but I already know the answer will be silence. And so I journey on… Viv Wild, Mark and Matt’s Mum