A colleague, who lost his toddler to a rare and painful illness, and I were sharing our stories and discussing how many parents lose a child/children to illness and how difficult it is to witness.
When Laila died I was crippled. Aidan was a beacon of light in my darkness and we became tightly bonded in our pain, grief and sadness. He was eleven at the time, young in years but old in spirit.
We moved forward, tightly bound together, and his beautiful soul guided me and gave me the strength to keep getting up each day. Having Aidan to care for spurred me on and kept me grounded and we cried, laughed and slowly moved onward.
Over time the tightness of our bond slowly unraveled, slackening, yet flexible, strongly connected and firmly joined. We found a rhythm and had fun together when we could and I watched my son mature and grow with unbounded pride.
When Aidan was 17 he talked to me about how Laila was not often on his mind much anymore and if this was okay with me. I remember smiling at him and explained to him that that was fine and normal. She was his sibling and his life was moving in different directions but that she would always be in his heart and I would carry that grief as her mother.
I thought losing Laila was the worst thing that could happen to me in my life but losing Aidan broke me. It left me not knowing who I was anymore. I could not find my fit in life. Losing both my children made me feel that I was no longer a mother, left me feeling very alone and not fitting into life as I did before, not sure what I was anymore and that I no longer had a role. I felt adrift with no anchor.
I did not want to move on, to feel joy; I just wanted to be in my pain and just be.
So hard to explain, so different losing a child but having another still with you, so inexplicable to comprehend that both my children had to die, so unfair having been a single mother, just so awful to lose my boy.
But I have always been supported by friends and family and as much as I wanted to collapse into a heap and disappear from life I could not. My heart adopted children needed me, my beautiful daughter in law needed support in her loss and my friends and family wanted me to stick around.
I’ve come to the realisation that a part of my life will not move forward, it’s stuck in the time of when my children were alive, and it’s also something I will never truly be able to deal with but will just have to live with it.
I try hard every day, not being able to verbalise this as it wears the people around me down so, I keep my pain close and I soldier on and try and see the positive in each day, to have a laugh, love and enjoy those around me.
Then out of nowhere a thought, a remark, a memory, a photo, a celebration will make me crumble and take me back to the beginning, the memories fresh and focused, my grief as stark as it was then.
Once again I will find some energy and dust myself off, get back on my feet and stand tall, take a big breath and look at the morning and greet the day.
To my two beautiful children,
To all the mothers who have lost their children, and to the fathers, I send you many blessings.
The mother
