When you are at a point in life in which you have to face an extreme emotional time, knowing that it will tear you apart yet, you still offer to share that moment. In return all you wish for is a physical reassurance that you are held, supported and loved.
Instead there is a stand-off, a distance and you’re told you are demanding.
In that instant the realisation smacks you that this is an insular journey. Few can understand, some will try, a handful will ride it with you and the rest will immerse themselves in their everyday lives.
An injured bird is looked at sadly and some will try to nurse it back to health. A child with its arm in plaster is treated with care and many will write fun things on the cast. Someone in a wheelchair or without a limb on crutches or a cancer patient who is obviously ill will be constantly treated with care and understanding and never thought of as demanding. Why is it that unless the human form looks broken or disabled there is limited or no recognition shown?
Personally, I feel as though a sledgehammer has shattered every bone in my body – that my internal organs have been rearranged and damaged so that I don’t recognise or feel them anymore yet, my form is intact. I look like me!
Demanding?
There are many forms of death. Instant – sudden – premeditated – long suffering or expected. After Laila died I attended a support group for families who had lost someone. I sat there and felt insignificant when hearing their stories of suicide, murder, drunk drivers, petrol bombs, drownings etc. Compared to mine their grief cut deep due to the horrific circumstances of many and I allowed it to trivialise mine.
Later, in counselling, I acknowledged that my grief was different. It lacked tragedy of that magnitude yet, it was mine and relevant to me.
With this in mind I started a support group for parents who had lost a child through an illness. Who had birthed a child, lived through a diagnosis, hope of survival, an illness, treatment, a few a transplant, hospital life, then having to say goodbye or prepare yourself, knowing that hope was exhausted.
This is a different death. A different journey and one not often talked about.
Now it’s my time to survive Aidan and so the circle of life continues. I do believe that parents should not have to bury their children and survive them, it is just not fair.
Over the years I have met wonderful people, talked about how it felt, how we coped and still cope, what we experienced, how grief has torn families apart, that men and woman cope differently and that in itself can be destructive.
What’s perceived as demanding is nothing more than our inability to cope. That in fact it is an extension of our hand, willing someone to care enough, to see through the mist of pain that lives around us like a moat, to just reach out, to bend, to yield to ego, and to just take it and hold onto it.
It’s a leap of faith to travel with a broken bird, but deep within, a song can be heard and it’s the precious notes of life that keep our hearts beating and the presence of saneness which helps us survive.
Love & laughter
Alison
R. Rodgers and O. Hammerstein II
When you walk through the storm
Hold your head up high
And don’t be afraid of the dark
At the end of the storm
There’s a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of the lark
Walk on, through the wind
Walk on, through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and blown
Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart
And you’ll never walk alone
You’ll never walk alone
Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart
And you’ll never walk alone
You’ll never walk alone