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Magazine
Excerpts - Apr ~ May 2007 |
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| Dr
Lindsay, a Scottish GP, writes of the simple yet
moving way that people in his small country town
expressed their grief and sympathy at the loss
of his son.
They came to us, hugged us
and wept for us. Most could not speak, and indeed
there were no words. We all knew that. But in
those momentary acts of hugging, of human contact,
we understood that their hearts and bodies were
trying to express things that words could not.
We cherish those gestures in our hours and days
of inexpressible despair and pain.
Our 12 year old son was killed
in a car crash on a cold April morning in 1987,
not far from home. I, as the nearest doctor, attended
the accident about 2 miles from my Health Centre,
unaware that my son was
involved. Two other injured occupants in the car
had already been taken to the hospital and another
little boy was shaken up but unhurt. Only my son
remained in the car trapped by his ankles, but
already unconscious; he took one last breath in
my arms.
The bewilderment, the disbelief,
the feeling of dread, the appalling guilt and
the dawning realisation that our child had lost
his chance of life, all this consumed us.
We felt the tug of genuine
sympathy from those who really meant it, but we
also recognised those who had
difficulty in crossing the bridge towards us in
our grief.
The touching continued: in
the street, in a shop, anywhere a hand briefly
on my arm, a look into my eyes, and I knew they
were with me. The touching was overwhelmingly
important. It says volumes more than words.
It transmits love and sympathy and instills a
spark of hope from a world that seems arbitrarily
to have drowned out any hope and faith that we
may have had in the future.
Some months back I had to
break the news to a mother that her son had taken
his own life. I said nothing but just hugged her
and wept with her. A few weeks later she came
to see me - we touched and, hard though it was
for her to find the words, she thanked me. I knew,
and she does know, that it was the right thing
to do.
Dr. Lindsay,
TCF. U.K. |
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I
cry for you tonight my precious baby girl. I don’t
know why it is happening at this time but I miss
you so very much.
All day the tears have flowed. I’ve tried
working and music and TV to think about something
other than how much I am missing you. I painted
a picture of you but even that made me feel so
very sad.
I don’t know why today
has been so hard to get through and can only hope
and pray that tomorrow will be a better day.
I wish you were here with
me now so that I could hold you just for a moment
and tell you how much I miss you and how much
I love you. I love you more and more every day
even though you are gone. What am I supposed to
do without you, my precious Puds?
The memories are good ones
but it hurts that memories are all I have of you
now. You would be a beautiful young woman now
had you lived, but you died and I am left to wonder
what you would look like now, how you would have
grown, if we still would have the same loving
relationship we had when you left me at ten years
of age. I think you would still be the loving,
caring, compassionate, friendly and helpful girl
you were back then.
Three years is too long to
be missing you baby girl, but it will only get
worse as more years pass. What am I supposed to
think and feel when I have days like this? Only
that I want to be with you. To hold you and kiss
you and love you and even to be angry and frustrated
with you.
It’s so hard to see
your friends growing up, turning into beautiful
if painful young women trying to find their place
in this world. Giving their parents a hard time,
just as we gave our parents a hard time when we
were going through puberty.
I want those hard times so badly Liss, but you
are not here to give me the love and heartbreak
I so desperately want to feel.
I want to laugh with you and
fight with you and help you when you find yourself
out of your depth. Celebrate your first love with
you and comfort you when your heart gets broken.
I want to be there when you find your soul mate,
when you know who you are and where you are going;
but it’s just an impossible dream. You have
gone away and I can’t get you back no matter
how much I want to. And I do want to Baby, more
than anything in this world or this dismal life
that I have without you.
Goodnight Baby Girl –
always remember your Mummy loves you so very much
and that you will always be in my heart –
forever.
I love you
Melissa, Mummy
Written by Deb TCF Vic, Au. |
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"A
parent's journey out of
crippling despair” |
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For three months, Rod drove around in a fog
of depression, angry at the world over the loss
of his teenage son, Travis to suicide and contemplating
the same for himself.
He kept notes
to family members in his car. He would sometimes
find himself driving on a road and not knowing
how he got there. The Vietnam War veteran cannot
quite remember exactly how he changed his mindset.
"I just one day thought 'Nah, this is not
for me,'" Mr Kindred says.
Close to the
time of his death, which was more than a decade
ago and just before his 19th birthday, Travis
was in a minor car accident and suffered job
setbacks—the stuff of life. His father
told him they would work things out and not
to worry.
It took Mr Kindred years to come to terms with
the death, the parental guilt, the "what
ifs and whys", the effect on the rest of
the family.
"I sooked
my guts out for three or four years," he
says. "Now it is pretty rare, but I believe
that the people who do it tough, who bellow
and weep and cry, seem to reach some sense of
settling earlier than others. Bottling it up
doesn't work—I could have filled Lake
Wendouree."
The burden
and the struggle to get out of the quagmire
of his own depression have meant that Mr Kindred
takes anti-depressants and has had extensive
counselling. Now he crusades in Travis' name,
through self-help group The Compassionate Friends
to help others come to terms with losing a child
by any means and at any age.
Helping parents
cope with guilt feelings is a big part of the
process.
"I know
there isn't a parent who doesn't wake up every
morning wanting to be anything other than the
best parent they can be, but for the first three
to five years your head is full of what you
should have done to make it better—if
you didn't tell him off, he would be alright
and still here. No they wouldn't. But you need
to have that conversation with somebody,"
he says."
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Everyone can master grief,
but
he who has it.
William
Shakspeare
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