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Autumn 2020 - TCF Newsletter | www.tcf.org.uk 7 Paul Bowtell Paul, with his wife Chris, set up and runs the supportgroupforbereavedparentsinColchester, and has recently taken on the co-facilitation of the new one-off online support group meetings for parents bereaved by cancer or long term illness. Here he reflects on his motivations and inspirations for volunteering for TCF. An immense thank you to Paul, and Chris, for all the support they provide to bereaved parents in their area of Essex. We hugely appreciate their commitment and dedication. Can you tell us a little about your background and how you got involved with TCF? Untimely death seemed to be a feature of my early life – my father died at 52 closely followed by my sister at 15. My mother died at 60. I don’t know that I grieved much back then. My son Stuart died aged 23 - 3 weeks after getting married in 20022002 - and it was my surviving sister who sent me a couple of TCF leaflets. Chris, my wife, and I became members of TCF about 10 years after Stuart died but it wasn’t until 2014, with retirement for me coming up, that we undertook the volunteer training for TCF, subsequently became local contacts and then facilitated a group that has been running now for 5 years. In 2014, to add to our ‘bereavement experience,’ our baby grandson Joshua died having lived only 6 hours. I trained to be Careers Advisor but ended up for 30 years as a church minister in East London. Can you tell us a little about your role with TCF? With Chris, I facilitate the Colchester Area Compassionate Friends group with folk from Ipswich to Tiptree and Stansted to Mersea Island. We can have anything from 9 to 19 at the monthly gathering. I have also more recently helped facilitate the online support group for those bereaved by long term illness or cancer and am also a grief companion. What’s the best thing about your role/s? Seeing change, growth and hope in individuals lives - often this is imperceptibly slow but very real - sometimes it’s a decision someone makes. It is also great to ‘facilitate’ - it’s the parents’ group and so often one supports another with a word or action or just in holding the silence. One person’s story can be an inspiration to another. What is challenging about your role with TCF? There are challenges galore! Staying with people’s pain and especially when they seem ‘stuck’. It can be painful sometimes hearing parents’ stories and knowing how, if at all, one can make a difference in what one might say. For me there is the extra challenge of holding true to my spirituality whilst facilitating a non-religious group believing that God is at work whether recognised or not. There are those who share my faith but, in one sense, that is almost incidental to the common bond we all share. I very much see that there is a spiritual dimension to grief that will be expressed in different ways. Are there areas of your volunteering with TCF that you would like to develop? Good question! I realise that I have been gifted with a gift no one wants (Joe Lawley’s poem – The Gift - is very much in my mind) and I have something to give to others bereaved. I wrote about ‘The New Normal’ in a previous edition of Compassion magazine which for me is lot around hope. So, for me, it may be writing more - I certainly think I need to understand more about grief. Currently, I am wondering how to connect with those bereaved in our village post Covid but, of course, that would be wider than loss of a child. What do you like to do to relax and recharge? I enjoy meals with Chris and chatting with friends. Times of quiet contemplation (sort of mindfulness in the Christian tradition) are important for me, as well as prayer on my own or with others. Gardening or DIY (the latter not necessarily relaxing!) recharges me, and I take much pleasure from walking and simply enjoying family.