For those of you looking for something light and frothy, today this isn't it. I've had a few difficult days. Friday would have been my son Daniel's 21st birthday. Tragically Daniel died 16 years ago on his fifth birthday. He hadn't been poorly but unbeknownst to us he had a coronary aneurism which was udiagnosed and undetected and in fact a ticking bomb. Dan had Kawasaki disease as a toddler but this had been missed.
May is a month full of birthdays for my family and this makes it especially hard that Daniels is such a sad day rather than a celebration. It's difficult that when I am buying cards and presents for everyone else but for Dan, I am writing a piece for the in memoriam section of the paper and ordering flowers for his grave. It's something that I will never get used to and doesn't get easier even with the years that pass.
How people react is interesting too. Obviously close friends and family are fine, they are used to Daniels being spoken of often. Some people are curious asking directly what happened but worried that they may cause me offence by doing so. I am always keen to point out that no offence will be taken and I'm glad to be able to raise the profile of the silent killer that is KD. Others are shocked but sympathetic and you can see them mentally counting their own blessings and wondering how they would cope in that situation. They often say that they wouldn't be able to but the reality is you have two options to carry on or not. Most people choose the first but they are unlikely to wear their grief like a badge of honour, more likely they quietly deal with the ups and downs of grieving. So many bereaved parents walk among us, you would be surprised. From a personal point of view, I had a traumatised 7 year old that I had no choice but to carry on for, it must be so much harder if you lose your only child. Even so the survival instinct is a strong one. Don't get me wrong some days you just want to stay in bed, draw the covers over your head and never face the world again but thankfully those times get less as the years pass.
The other group of people you come across are probably the hardest to come to terms with. They are the ones who for what ever reason can't deal with acknowledging your loss. In the days, weeks and months after Dan died, I had people who literally crossed the road to avoid speaking to me. Or when I did speak to them for the first time didn't acknowledge what had happened to the point where I have thought that they didn't know, in some cases I have told them as I really believed they didn't know but they did and that made them even more uncomfortable. At first this made me angry, that they couldn't Acknowledge it was like an insult to Daniel. Now it's makes me a bit sad that they are so scared of emotions and also a little envious because its likely that they have never lost anyone really close or they would be able to be more empathetic.
Nowt so strange as folk eh.
I think one of the best pieces of advice I can give anyone for dealing with sensitive issues such as these is take your lead from the person in question, chances are they will want to talk about it and just because you don't know what to say, don't just say nothing. It's perfectly acceptable to say just that ' I don't know what to say' yes you may feel bad but believe me you are never going to feel as bad as the person who is bereaved and they don't feel bad because of what people have said to them, they feel bad because of their loss and sometimes just someone acknowledging that is enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment