TCF News, Winter 2020

Winter 2020 - TCF Newsletter | www.tcf.org.uk 2 ‘Look up. Blink. Breathe. Repeat. And then, not just a Good Mourning, you’ll have had a Good Day.’ Maria Ahern We are grateful to Maggie Pinsent for her review of the evening with Maria on 2nd September. The worst part of lockdown, for me, was having to forgo the TCF Gathering and weekend retreats I had signed up for. I was bereft. So, when the opportunity came up to attend Zoom groups and the talks, I was first in line. And I’ve not been disappointed. This last talk, by Maria Ahern, former Chair and current Trustee of TCF, was no exception. Maria is an enthusiastic writer and speaker, with a deep mine of well researched information – and she has an enviable way of expressing her ideas that resonate profoundly; Maria makes me sit up and consider other sides of my devastating loss. My son Dylan died on 30 January 2017, aged 33. Dylan is my only child, and the love of my life and the light in my world. At the end of July that year, I went to my first TCF weekend retreat in Oxfordshire – The Childless Parents gathering. And that’s when I met Maria. I hadn’t wanted to stay but I did, and I’m so glad I did because that was where and how I discovered I am not alone, there are others like me, and they are still alive. So, I will survive this too. This special talk, via Zoom, was entitled ‘A Good Mourning’. A play on words that works very well and brings a smile to my heart, but there is a good reason for using the idea too. ‘Mourning’ without the ‘U’, is just a word for a time of day but in the context of our loss, the all important ‘u’ or ‘you’ is all about how we/you can live with our/your grief. It may sound convoluted at first, but there is a difference between grief and mourning which I hadn’t grasped before Maria spoke of it. So, what follows is what I have taken away from Maria’s wonderful talk. Grief is defined in ways that imply the emotion will typically decrease. The bereaved person will move on and the death will fade into the background. We know that is not the case for us. Our feelings and emotions for the child that has died will never decrease or indeed cease. The death of a child, grandchild or a sibling, is the worst possible loss anyone can experience. And, until it happens to us, we cannot imagine the devastation. The day before our child died, we were not bereaved parents and we had no idea how the death of our child would collapse our world. And that’s why it’s called ‘Complicated Grief’. There’s no going back, and there’s no moving on. We are forever changed. The beginnings of that life ‘without’ or ‘after’ is taken up with the practicalities of living – choosing an order of service, the funeral, a will in some cases, the belongings, the documentation, etc – and it is grief, deep unadulterated grief, that engulfs the SEPTEMBER A Good Mourning with guest speaker Maria Ahern