Damage Control

I struggle to remember exactly how I got through those first few days, I remember people saying I would expect to feel numb and shocked, but I assumed they were referring to how I felt when I saw Morag die. When I did a mental ‘pat for my keys’ I still felt like me, but I did warily recognise that the depths of despair and anguish I had felt before she died had gone or were at least significantly muted. A guilty part of me felt relief, the hellish roller coaster of hope and then despair was over. The worst possible thing had happened. So now, it must be all uphill, no? I became fixated on getting things done. How can the Bereavement Office leave us waiting for a call when this monumental tragedy has happened? I had moved Jamie and I back into our new house. I just sat at home, playing video games and feeling raw. The only thought I remember was “How has this happened?” clattering around in my head over and over. Thinking of Morag only led to flashes of images of her dying and the worst times in hospital.

Morag’s parents were still in practical mode and asked me to find our marriage certificate and her passport, which we would need for registering the death. I remember hunting through her office, looking at an open notepad with her writing in dismay. I went through everything, tearing through the office in a disorganised way. I just wanted to find the certificate and passport, and close that door, no metaphor intended. I couldn’t find anything. Finally in desperation I expanded the search and found a wicker basket which I could see held some kind of paperwork. I opened the lid and realised this was Morag’s memory chest from our wedding. I blinked and part of me thought “Ok, here it comes, here comes all that emotion…..” Nothing. Before I could explore that further I started rifling through the box like a fox in a rubbish bin. I picked up and discarded the wedding invitation that she had hand printed herself, our table setting, some of the little bags on dried lavender she had made as wedding favours, the sign she had designed for this box which letters and cards were put into. The wedding breakfast menu. Of course my organised, dear Morag wouldn’t stuff our marriage certificate into this box but I was determined to find the certificate and ‘tick a box’. It wasn’t there. I stopped and started as if waking from a dream and looked around at the mess I had made, like I had desecrated something pure. I left and shut the door and retreated to Morag’s parents’ house.

We discussed the funeral we were waiting to organise. Morag was an incredible singer, she was the head of her choir at her school and had joined a choir in London she sang with for many years. She was a trained Opera Singer. Morag’s parents asked if I knew of any hymns that she liked, ashamedly I admitted I didn’t. Being an atheist I never attended Church regularly. A couple of times I went to wait for her to finish so we could go into London for lunch. But never took notice of the hymns names. And it’s hard to pick out the syllables, let alone the words of Gregorian Chants! I messaged the head of her choir asking if he knew what hymns she liked. He messaged back with a few, but also mentioned that Morag had been due to sing Mozart’s “Laudate Dominum” at her friend’s wedding in a few weeks. He said the majority of the choir wanted to come to the funeral and suggested one of them sing this song in her honour. This resonated with Morag’s parents and me, so we agreed.

Sadly, I don’t have loads of pictures of Morag. She was always conscious of her weight, even though she was always beautiful to me. In most of the pictures I had taken, Morag was secondary to Jamie. I remember in that first week my mind kept returning to a few images. One, was Morag’s last birthday present to me. It was a frame of a watercolour of a Daddy Bear and Cub, looking away, holding hands. Underneath it says “Daddy and Jamie. Adventure Awaits”. Meant as an endearing gift given months before she got sick, it had become a lot more poignant and painful to think of. It almost felt like mockery in its now-aptness. The other was a video of Morag standing with Jamie, when he was only a few months old, he is on her chest and she has just sung him to sleep with Ella Fitzgerald’s “Someone to Watch Over Me”. She sang him to sleep when he was upset, annoyingly I only managed to record about 20 seconds of it. My heart fit to burst for her gorgeous voice and her enduring image of motherhood. We picked this song for the funeral as well. This video added to the flaming sense of injustice that coursed through me. It was around then that I first wished it had been me to die, not her. She was too good a person, too good a mother, too good a wife, too good a daughter and sister to have this happen to her.

Morag’s parents really worked hard to make me feel included in the funeral arrangements, but to be honest, I struggled. I was objectively aware that the funeral had to happen and part of me wanted it to happen so I could start to ‘move on’. But it was also incredibly strange and impossible to grasp. I find it very difficult to articulate how my mind worked in that first week. Denial comes to mind. The sense of complete revulsion at what had happened made it feel unreal. I guess my mind avoided dwelling on things like that because talking about the funeral made it real, receiving cards offering condolences made it real, getting Facebook messages from her childhood friends made it real. It wasn’t that I avoided hearing these things, but mentally I did. It would just be bypassed somewhere. The overriding thought as I keep saying, was “How the hell has this happened?!” It wasn’t that I wanted to know the physiological things that had killed her, it was this profound sense of injustice, and rage against fate, things which I had always smugly assumed I didn’t prescribe to. I think if she had died in a car crash it would have made more sense to me. For her to go from vague tummy pains to late stage cancer to death in 6 weeks just didn’t make sense. For us both to be children of GPs and therefore have an awareness of red flags. For her to get this kind of cancer at 34, months after a miscarriage.

When you think that you are an atheist, surely you have to accept that we live in a chaotic universe? Clearly on some level I didn’t. Same base instinct I had made me think we lived in a moral or just universe. I remember thinking “But I played the game right!? We dated, moved in together, got married, had a baby, moved to York, tried to be healthy, loved and supported each other. Why punish us?” Outside of this I started to think about how I was going to support myself.

I had moved from London to York and had few friends, I was acquainted with a few of Morag’s friends from school, some of whom I have mentioned previously. And I had Morag’s family. I didn’t have anyone else. I got my Mum to come up and she did her best to support me. She had thrown herself into reading about bereavement and was the first person to talk to me about the stages to expect, and how time really was going to be the only thing that would improve things for me. She found the charity, Widowed and Young (WaY) – a charity specifically set up with the aim of putting widows and widowers under 50 together. Beyond that, she just tried to take care of cleaning, cooking and helping out where she could with Jamie. My Mum was a very special person, she was incredibly selfless and her heart broke for me. However after a few days I sent her home, she had a dog staying with a friends but I think she would have stayed as long as I wanted. I think the problem was that in her primal instinct to “fix” my situation she couldn’t sit with me in silence. I was so numb and in pain but completely unable to vocalise it that I just wanted to sit there. And as reassuring as it was to have someone with me, my Mum couldn’t sit in silence.

Next came the cards. The condolences started flooding in. “There are no words…” is probably the most-heard statement when you are bereaved. You get sick of seeing them. “Thoughts and prayers” and “Condolences” are a close second. I read them and felt nothing, except feeling vaguely touched by everyone’s messages. It did become a scary thing though, when they started flooding in, it somehow reiterated how terrible a thing had happened to me- when my brain was doing its best to deny all. I shuffled around the house, seeing her coats still hung up at the front door, and her shoes literally everywhere. I don’t like being stereotypical but fuck me, she had so many shoes. When I looked at them, I would just shake my head and think “How the hell has is this happened to us?” The unjustness of it sickened me. However there was no anguish, no profound sadness, just revulsion at what had happened to her, and me, and Jamie. Finally on the Thursday after she had died we received a call about going to get the certificate. Morag’s Dad and I walked into the hospital, this time walking into the bereavement office that we had walked past dozens of times in the last week. Not far from the ward where she had died, which was one floor up from the ward she had been born in. I kind of expected to be treated like a number, you assume someone who does this for a job would become inured to it, but the Doctor seemed genuinely upset for us, commenting on Morag being only 34, and that she had a daughter a similar age. Morag’s Dad and I sat their stiff backed, trying to keep it together. Very quickly we had the form and my eyes skittered over “Person: Morag Wilson. Cause of Death: Metastatic Colorectal Cancer Perforated (operated). Wife of: Ian Wilson”. She asked if we wanted to speak to someone about a memory box for Jamie. We waited and a young woman came around clutching a small white box and put it in my hands. I wanted to dash it against the wall. She talked to us with a weird, quiet, dreamlike quality that I just found patronising. I wanted to tell her to just shut up, instead I cried. “Do you think it would be nice to get Jamie to decorate it?” Oh yeah, I love the idea of my son decorating a box in memory of his dead Mum. We left and walked to the car, it was raining so I was protecting the memory chest with my coat, to the detriment of the rest of me- again, no metaphor intended.

Morag’s Dad and I went to get some lunch. While we were eating he started listing the things I needed to do, closing bank accounts, seeing a solicitor, etc. Again I was rankled by his practical manner and thought him heartless. It was when we talked about the funeral that I saw his bottom lip quiver and he looked at me straight in the eye. What I saw there was scary – for an instant I saw how broken and distraught he was. He stuffed his sandwich into his mouth and quickly regained his composure. I sat there feeling so ashamed that I had prejudged Morag’s parents as too practical. Having military and medical backgrounds I thought they were not as devastated as me. But that one chink in his armour smashed my false perception to pieces. And I grieved for him. A few days later we were all together at the funeral directors being asked stupid questions like ‘Do you want Pall bearers to carry the coffin in, or do you want it there waiting for you.’ I know it sounds childish and stupid but I still wanted to stand up and flip the desk screaming “I don’t want any of this!” Time was rushing onwards away from her death while part of my mind wanted to everything to stop, surely I can go back and fix this.

The following week I started putting my support network in place. It was clear that I was thinking of grief as a disease, something which could be managed and that by embracing it I could get through it quicker. From speaking to other widows/widowers this seems quite common. Lots of people experience a period of numbness and tend to focus on practical details, which does help because there is a hell of a lot of admin associated with someone’s death. One of the first things that made me weep was when I received two letters. One was a card to me offering condolences, it was from a nursery friend that Morag had made before we left London – they had grown incredibly close in a short period of time. But within the card to me was another letter addressed to Jamie. She had written a letter to Jamie for when he was older, filled with specific memories of her time with Morag and him, and how she saw Morag. From diagnosis onwards, the coping strategy of “taking one day at a time” is drilled into you as the only real way of staying sane whilst living with the unbearable. This letter to Jamie dragged my mind forward through the years to when he will be old enough to read it. Jamie when he is leaving primary school will not have his Mummy, Jamie when he does his exams will not have his Mummy, Jamie when he gets married or has kids will not have his Mummy. Jamie when he has outlived his Mummy will not have his Mummy. It broke me. The second letter was from Jamie’s nursery. The card was signed by other parents and nursery workers. But again, it was the additional package inside that broke me. It was three sheets of A4, it succinctly listed the nursery child’s name, the parents’ names, their phone numbers and email address. Underneath this is it had a short paragraph on days they could pick up Jamie, days they could do some washing for me, meals they could freeze for me, etc. Along with a voucher for a frozen food supplier. Again, I wept. This simple, thankless, humble offering of real and practical help to me was more touching than all the thoughts and prayers. Unfortunately my mind also interpreted it as an act of such generosity that would only be warranted if something truly terrible had happened to me. Clearly it had.

Three of the Mummies from nursery quickly became a real life line for me. They didn’t just say “Call us if you need anything”, they practically kicked my door down asking me to go for walks, and to ask if they could come round. They texted me throughout the day and in the evenings. They seemed to have this pure instinct for what I needed. In those early days I needed lots of people around me, but you don’t recognise it, when you have a person you have spent every day together for 12 years you are simply not built to recognise the deep loneliness that afflicts you. My Mum and my best friend, Jay, similarly called me every day. These daily debriefs were one of the biggest things I missed practically about being with Morag, and they became incredibly important to me. My Mum and Jay kept reassuring me to just “Feel what I feel”, not to tie myself in knots or try to elicit emotion because I feel guilty or that what I am feeling is ‘wrong’. Two of the nursery mummies who I had jokingly referred to as “Super Mums” for their incredible homes and birthday parties were one of the first to ask me to out to walk the dogs. I I quickly judged them as not really being equipped to talk to about real stuff, but would be great for getting me out of the house, and plans to improve my house, and playdates for Jamie. Another Mummy, I started to refer to as my “Sweary Mummy Friend”. She would curse enough to make a sailor blush and she had also had her own bereavement when she lost her father a couple of years previously, whom she described as her best friend. I could say anything to her, and her insights and support were invaluable. I don’t know how many times in life I need to learn the lesson that you shouldn’t prejudge people. I had quickly decided that the Super Mums would only be able to support me in practical ways, but they quickly demonstrated they had their own baggage and deep reservoirs of strength to lend me, they were more than capable of supporting me in that way. I will forever be indebted to Alex, Kathryn and Faye.

I remember I kept thinking about a scene from the film, Trainspotting, where the main protagonist is preparing to give up heroin. He knows he is going to get very sick so he prepares himself with all the things he will need to get through it. It doesn’t work out for him but this was how I felt at the time. I knew that I was not fully grieving. At times you could almost feel this huge wave of turmoil rising up from your stomach, before my mind pushed it away. My grief felt like a locked room, through the door I could hear the angry buzzing and storming of emotions but I kept it firmly shut. Quite amazing really, how your brain protects you in those early days. I wanted to get a support network of friends who I could talk to, I saw my GP regularly to discuss what services were available, I kept up running, I spoke to charities about what Jamie needed from me. I tried to take as many offers from people as I could. You could tell some people were completely frantic to find something to help me and Jamie. Sometimes it’s hard, if someone says “Is there anything I can do?” Actually finding something, but you get a sense of the people who are offering platitudes, and others who are desperate to help in anyway. I had dipped into a few blogs about bereavement and a few talked about how they received dozens of offers in the first few weeks. But their numbness and longing for solitude isolated them, then when the grief was in full flow 3 months later, those people whom originally had been offering their right arm were nowhere to be found. As uncomfortable as it was to try and build new friendships based on such a deep need on my, I was very focussed on getting them in place for when I would be in a mess. I think anyone grieving should be prepared for this dynamic and to try hard to take it personally. You will quickly find out who the true people are, namely as they will stay the course, while those who are less generous will fall by the wayside quickly. People who I assumed would be bashing my door down sometimes were completely absent, and others seemed to have that sixth sense as to what I needed and when. My Mum was one of them. Jay was another. Super Mums and Sweary Mummy were too.

I always have thought of myself as empathetic, often times to my detriment. Often in life I have waived off poor behaviour or service thinking that I don’t know what is going on in that person’s life, but at the same time wishing I had stuck up for myself more. Many people were so completely unaware of what to say or do, that they were stunned into silence. I would never judge those people for that. Some people that I was quietly disappointed not to see liking posts on facebook or sending me private messages would come to message me months later, saying they have been meaning to contact me for ages but had no idea what to say. It’s a tough lesson that I think society needs to learn, rather than everyone bereaved like me having to learn the hard way. I didn’t want people offering advice, hope or platitudes for the most part. Sometimes I just wanted to sit in a room and not be alone.

The evenings were the worst. Once Jamie was down I would come downstairs and look at my new house, that Morag and I had dreamed of together. I wouldn’t weep, I wouldn’t eat, I would do nothing. Until I finally picked up a tablet and watched short viral clips on Youtube. The technology equivalent of getting drunk or smoking weed. Speaking to my Mum always helped. I would think I had nothing to say but then I would go into minute detail with her talking about what happened that day. I remember feeling like my grief was a big boil, thinking that I just needed to lance it hard and fast and all the grief would come boiling out. Or that it was a big stack of paperwork, that had to be given time to process. By talking about my feelings, exercising, eating right and seeking help then the grief would be easier and quicker. I think those things do make grieving better, but not easier or faster.

I tied myself in knots about ‘grieving right’ and whether Jamie was ‘grieving right’. I was overly critical of myself and over analysed what I was feeling. Determined not to feel guilty of a lack of emotion, but at the same time feeling no real understanding of my thoughts and feelings. I had always quietly taken pride in my emotional intelligence, so it was disconcerting to feel so untethered to my frames of emotional reference.

My advice to anyone in the early stages of grief is to not be hard on yourself. I think the problem with feeling so functional and numb in the early stages, as well as our Western culture, is that people stick to mantras of “I must be strong”, especially when kids are involved. My other advice is to just feel what you feel. If you cannot eat, that’s fine, if you eat too much, that’s fine. If you need to sleep then sleep. There is nothing that I can offer that will make it easier, the worst thing has happened. Your grief is valid and real. You will start to learn what grief is, and it’s something unique to each person. But in my opinion, being self-critical, or guilty or expecting too much of yourself adds to the burden. It doesn’t make grieving harder or easier, but it certainly is an unwelcome distraction. If you cry all day, that is fine. If you don’t cry, that is fine. If you drink yourself into a stupor to get to sleep, then I won’t judge you. What you will slowly start to learn is that grief is very much not a disease, that will be treated or respond nicely to your plans. Grief is an all-encompassing term to cover what losing someone central to your life is. Grief is not sadness at losing the love of your life. My grief included rage, sadness, injustice, depression, denial, physical sickness, trauma. You start to realise you are not just grieving the person who has gone, you are grieving for your own life, which has gone, you are grieving for what the person has lost, you are grieving for the trauma of the process, you are grieving for the future you have lost. Mindfulness apps, sleeping noise apps, exercise, eating right, talking to people, cleaning yourself. If you manage some of this everyday then you are doing well, and if you aren’t, then fuck it – let anyone else go through this and then tell you what you should or should not be feeling/doing. You don’t even need to have hope for the future, you just need to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and taking it day by day, minute by minute, second by second.

If you are reading this for someone else grieving then my advice is to offer real practical help – pop round when you know they are alone. Call them at 9pm. Cook a little extra, bag it up and bring it over to be frozen. If you don’t know what to say, that’s fine, as we all know ‘there are no words’. You don’t have to say anything. Just be there with them. Sit with your back to them, so they don’t feel you are just staring at them. Do the washing up. Don’t tell them to “Keep being strong”. Don’t tell them “You are doing great”. Don’t say you are so impressed with how strong they are being.

People kept complimenting my strength at a time when I have never felt weaker. My numbness and shock being interpreted as stiff upper lip and strength for Jamie. I didn’t feel strong, I didn’t feel proud, I felt fundamentally broken and lost. I was crying out for support but I guess I was too numb or ‘British’ to phone people and say “I’m in crisis, please help me”. I have subsequently learnt to do this though, and I have never regretted picking up the phone when in need.

To those of you grieving, if you need to talk, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Much Love,

p.s. I have written the story of Morag’s diagnosis to her death, in the ‘My Story’ section, I think the link was broken when I launched the blog.  

My First Blog Post

HELL

Morag died around 1am on Sunday the 5^th of May, a bank holiday weekend. I got home and went to bed. My Dad was staying with me so he and his wife looked after my 3 year old son, Jamie in the morning while I lay there staring at the ceiling. I had only slept for about 4 hours. I don’t remember much about that morning. I only remember not having any idea about how to tell Jamie. I didn’t feel anything really. The only other thing I remember is the one thought that kept bouncing around inside my head, “How the hell has this happened?” I couldn’t bear the idea of telling Jamie, how do you tell a 3 year old that their Mum has died? It feels so antithetical to being a parent – intentionally doing something you know will hurt them. Like trying to look at the sun without blinking

Back at the beginning of April, a couple of weeks after we had been diagnosed, Morag, her Mum (H) and Dad (Mc) and I met with a pre and post bereavement counsellor, Angela, that we were referred to by the MacMillan nurses we met at York Hospital. She specialises in helping parents talk to their children about cancer and death. Morag sat there with her notebook taking notes and being her amazing brave self. I sat there shaking my head and hugging a cushion, these meetings were still so surreal. How are we sitting here, having this conversation?

Angela was very nice and seemed genuine in her sympathy for our situation. But I remember being slightly disappointed she wasn’t more shocked at our situation. “Call the papers! We have a 34 year old mother with cancer!” In retrospect, this was a very stupid reaction! This is the pool that Angela swims in every day, she must have seen everything, a whole career of meeting people who have been unlucky. For someone who always took quiet pride in being empathetic about the spectrum of human suffering, I felt so completely victimised and ‘picked on’ by the Universe. It wasn’t just that Morag had cancer, it was the fact it was already at Stage IV, and that apart from some tummy pains she had experienced none of the other red flags associated with the disease. I have never had spiritual beliefs but I realised at a visceral level I clearly believed we lived in a moral, or just universe. I played the game right, I was a good person, how has this happened to us? How completely naïve of me!

I was hoping from the meeting to be given a lot more guidance on what to say to Jamie, and how. If she had given us a script or said “Don’t worry. Where is he? I will sort him out” then I would have felt a lot happier. I didn’t want this responsibility. The overall strategy of what she said was that no one knows our son better than us. We are best place to know how much he would understand and how best to deliver it to him. She said it is up to us to decide if we want to tell him or not, but she strongly advised telling him. She said that kids are very receptive but also very resilient. She broadly advised the ethos of being open and honest with Jamie, but to try our best to answer questions in language he can understand. A lot of the guidance I had read put Jamie in a grey area, where he was too young for us to do nothing, but too old to be able to get any reasonable understanding of the permanence of death or chronic illness.

Angela said “You shouldn’t say “Mummy is very poorly” or “Mummy has a sickie tummy” or “Mummy is going to be taking medicine to help her get better”” The idea being that he could get poorly, or a sickie tummy or have to take medicine. If he were to get poorly, and we said “You are poorly”, then he could think he has the same thing as Mummy. And let’s face it, it’s a pretty solid bet he will be poorly at some stage, being a kid in nursery is like being a petri dish next to a bin. Angela’s advice made total sense and I felt gratitude because I instantly recognised I would have easily stepped on one of these land mines.

Finally Angela asked, “How do you feel about the word – tumour?” What a loaded question! At this I started to cry. I couldn’t bear the idea of saying the word tumour to Jamie- I still hadn’t accepted it myself! What we settled on was the word ‘lump’. So it’s not “Mummy has a poorly tummy”, its “Mummy has a lump in her tummy that hurts her”. It’s not “Mummy is having medicine”, its “Mummy is having special-hospital medicine”.

The skills we were learning from Angela were going to all be about explaining to Jamie that Mummy had cancer, and how to explain the likely side effects of chemo he would see – Mummy tired, Mummy’s hair falling out, etc. It was never in my mind about explaining to Jamie that his Mummy had died.

I remember a few days after we were diagnosed I volunteered to tell Jamie’s nursery the news of our diagnosis. We purely wanted to tell them so that they could help watch for changes in Jamie’s behaviour. Jamie was enrolled in our dream nursery. When we moved up from London Jamie’s nursery changed from a place that had to run drills on what to do if a terrorist or crazy person gained entry, to an organic forest school nursery. His neighbours went from knife crime to a couple of horses and alpacas. His new nursery also were keen to tell us about their new age techniques for ensuring the kids built the right coping skills and support. When a kid bites another, rather than being chided and told off, they drop ‘love bombs’ on them to find out why they are angry and have acted out. The cynic in me rolled my eyes at this hippy stuff but objectively I agreed with her that kids are not born malicious or violent, they are made that way.

When I dropped Jamie at nursery that morning I asked to see R, the nursery manager. She wasn’t in so I asked them to call me and let me know when she was in and if I could have a meeting with them. They seemed concerned but I think, like all nursery management they probably assumed my request was regarding a complaint. When I went in R seemed completely open and ready for whatever would come up. She had worked in nurseries for a long time. I sat down in her office, and said “Something terrible has happened. Morag has stage 4 cancer”. She shot to her feet and came around the desk and hugged me. She pulled up a chair next to me and tears stood out in her eyes. The whole reason for me being there evaporated and she was purely focussed on consoling me. I was in pieces, and in the face of her overwhelming empathy and personal pain at the news I found someone who I could talk to.

After she did her best to give me hope she saw through to the best way she could help us. R can usually talk for Queen and Country and she started “The biggest killer of men under 45 is suicide…” Where the hell is this going? I wondered. But clearly and concisely she talked about how in our culture men are not encouraged to talk about their feelings. ‘Man-up’, ‘keep strong’, ‘be brave’, are all symptoms of a toxic system that encourages men to bottle up their feelings. This side of our culture is completely antithetical to Lil Green Rascals’ ethos. Slowly I started to piece together what she was aiming at, and she was one of the first to talk to me about the importance of Jamie seeing my emotions. Seeing that it is ok to be open and honest about my feelings is one of the best things I could do for Jamie, seeing Daddy cry and knowing it is ok to be angry, sad, scared is the only way I can reassure him that these emotions are completely normal and healthy, and then give him coping skills and tools on how to manage them.

Having a family history of addiction, anxiety and depression I started to see how important her message was. I have never had trouble being open and honest about my feelings. Which I owe in spades to my late Mum.

So back to the day Morag died…

Jamie and I, and Morag’s family all went to Castle Howard, an amazing stately home with huge grounds and play areas for the kids. E had already told his two kids, V, 7, and R, 3. I walked around like a zombie, feeling bereft and staying two feet behind Jamie, unconsciously trying to shelter him. I remember V running up to Jamie and saying something about flowers for Morag to take to Heaven. Jamie looked at her blankly and one of us quickly changed the subject and got V away from Jamie. But this shot across the bow shocked me to my core, and the slow realisation there was no escaping this hit me.

That evening we were all at Morag’s parents’ house. I had made the decision I was going to move into their house for that week, hoping we could all grieve together. And there was no denying that in hell, its better when you are surrounded by people you love. But that evening was horrendous. D (Morag’s brother) and L (his wife) had undoubtedly been two of the best people in the time since our diagnosis. L in particular had given me the tip about deep breathing when you are panicking, and D had previously been very positive about Morag’s chances. Somehow he had run the gauntlet of Dr Google and come out the other side confident about Morag’s prognosis. Either he was blagging it to bolster my spirits or he honestly believed it. It doesn’t really matter, at the time it was what I needed to hear.

One of the first things we talked about was Mc saying D&L might as well go home, “There’s no point being here and moping”. I wanted to scream, I needed them to stay, but this wasn’t about me, this was about them, at least that’s how I felt at the time. Conversation moved onto what we had to do, in regards to the funeral, registering the death, etc. In an aside Mc said “And we need to have the will amended as its only going to two of you now, not three”. Purely childish response from me, but I felt like I was being cut out of the family now. But I quickly dismissed it as fair, it’s not my inheritance – but the burning resentment still simmered. Over the course of the conversation I then said “I cannot bear the idea of sleeping that bed again!” The bed Morag and I had shared when we lived there. “Well you can sleep in the guest room if you like?” Mc said. I think I had been trying to subtly guide the conversation to grief and my loss – it was the elephant in the room. When Mc responded to my query with a purely practical suggestion made me think that I wasn’t going to get what I needed living there. At the time I was completely blind to how Mc&H were in their own stages of grief and denial, and how they were probably trying to be strong to stop their family flying apart. They were doing such a good job of being strong for their family, that I thought they were heartless – oh how wrong I was. But at the time I felt like an outsider, and that I wouldn’t get the support I needed. The problem facing me was I didn’t have any other.

The next day was a Bank Holiday Monday, I came downstairs to see D&L’s suitcase by the front door. E had gone home to try and support his family. Mc&H were shuffling around the house like zombies. Jamie was bouncing off the walls like usual, and I knew I had to get out and do something with him or he would start going crazy. I took him to a play park near our new house and messaged two of Morag’s school friends who were married and had two kids, a 3 year old boy and a 1 year old girl. P&M had experienced their own horror story when they lost their first daughter, Emily, not long after she was born. She had some kind of congenital disorder but had weeks of the roller coaster of hope and loss until she finally died. Some gut instinct made me want to be around people who had also been served a dud hand, as they would know more about what I needed. They had also been the most persistent people trying to kick our door down when Morag was diagnosed, offering to help us with chores, Jamie and emotional support. They said they would be with me in 20 minutes. I took them back to ours and Jamie played with Jack and I was able to sit there feeling shell shocked while they chatted and offered any help they could.

I took Jamie back to Morag’s parents’ house that evening and got him to bed. On the morning Jamie was due in nursery, I hadn’t slept well so tried to placate Jamie with an iPad while I tried to find the will to get up. At the same time I was getting more and more anxious about Jamie going to nursery, he still didn’t know about his Mum. We lived in a relatively small community so I knew I had to tell him before he went to nursery. I wrestled the iPad from him and tried to get him dressed. Jamie had recently developed a habit where if Morag or I annoyed him he would cry for the opposite parent. When he refused to put his socks on and cried for Mummy, I quickly decided that there was not time better than now. I pulled him into my lap. “Jamie, Daddy has something very sad to tell you. Mummy has died”. I was fully expecting no reaction, or as the books said for him to walk off and clam up. But he burst into tears and kept calling for Mummy. I had assumed he would have no idea or concept of what death was. I tried to pull him back to me but he pushed away from me with his legs. He then cried “I want my Mummy”. “I do too darling” I said as I burst into tears. Hcame in and picked Jamie up from in front of me and rocked and tried to console him but he pushed away from her and reached out both hands to me, “I want Daddy!” I took him back and rocked him as he cried. “She’s with the angels, darling” I said. I then took him downstairs and rocked him and put the telly on. CBeebies finally distracted him and he sat there. He looked so vulnerable, red faced and quiet, holding his hand to his mouth. I felt a huge punch of what I can only describe as rage. How dare the Universe do this to my son? I remember in my head Jamie was such an innocent, he didn’t deserve this. And Morag and I did? It just seemed so horrifically wrong and unjust.

Jamie started to ask about going to nursery to see his friends so again I was struck with a difficult decision, I instinctively wanted to keep him as close as possible but also I was barely in a state to look after myself, let alone him. So I took him in. (The first time I wrote this I wrote “I am ashamed to say I took him in”). How could you take your son to nursery, hours after telling him his Mummy had died? Unless you’ve been in my place, I will not take any criticism. We took him in but we told R to let us know if anything happened, she was already aware of Morag’s death.

Over the following week, Jamie asked where the angels were. What? I vaguely remembered in trying to console him I had said “She is with the angels, darling”. Big mistake. Since then I have found that if you say “She is in heaven”, “She is in the clouds”, “She’s gone” then kids have no idea what you are talking about. Ultimately they will think that Mummy has gone to another place, they don’t know the difference between the Cotswolds and Heaven. And by telling them this it opens up questions that APPARENTLY kids will have. Why did Mummy go to another place? Why can’t I go? Did she go there because I was bad? Why doesn’t she want to come back? Can I go to Heaven? Lovely little nest of horror there. Grievers Pro-Tip #1 – try and think about the specific language you are going to use when breaking this news. Try and imagine what someone without your frames of reference could possibly lead them to think. Grievers Pro-Tip #2 – you will fail at Pro-Tip #1.

So what would I say to someone who is fretting about how to deliver news like this to their kids? What was the best advice I can pull out of the myriad of support I had regarding Jamie?

Don’t. Be. Hard. On. Yourself.

You have more than enough on your plate without adding a steaming pile of guilt and anxiety on top of it. You are going through hell, and the scary thing is how resilient kids are, especially the young ones. I spent weeks and weeks fretting and beating myself up about what I said to Jamie. But you know what? If anyone wants to say they think they could have done a better job, then let them. No-one asks to be the parent who intentionally hurts their kids by delivering the most crushing news. Someone in the palliative care team had given me a selection of books to read with Jamie, designed for his age. Grievers Pro-Tip #3 – read these books alone before reading them to your kids. I picked up a book called “Missing Mummy” and asked Jamie if he wanted to read it. He said yes, so I snuggled up with him and opened it. I didn’t make it past page 4 before my throat closed up and my head felt like it would explode. Jamie got bored and wanted to play something else. This has become the major theme of Jamie’s grief. I try and make sure he is aware of his ability to talk to me at any time, and I keep re-enforcing the idea that Mummy didn’t want to leave him, Mummy loved him more than anything, Mummy didn’t leave because of anything he did, Mummy’s love never dies, Daddy is sad, Daddy is angry, Daddy misses Mummy, and all these things are totally natural. I will write much more about Jamie’s journey through grief, at the moment, just saying what happened over 48 hours is enough.

It was the day I read Missing Mummy to Jamie, I decided I needed more support, and quick…

This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.

Endgame

Life became about waiting for the funeral. It was a bizarre fixation, an almost unconscious expectation that once the funeral is done, we can start to rebuild. At the same time my brain was still trying to slam the brakes on everything, there was a very primal feeling of complete denial, and I guess bargaining (another notorious ‘stage’ of grief). What had happened felt so alien that I kept feeling like there must be a way to fix it. I was trying to fill up my diary building my new support network – considering I was off work I was very busy, I was either trying to complete all of the ‘death’ admin, researching charities about bereavement for Jamie and me, or meeting up with people who had opened their doors to me since Morag had been diagnosed.

Jay and my Mum continued to be big lifelines for me, they both called everyday, at random times and this helped immensely. I only really recognised how important these daily contacts were until they were gone. Jay dropped everything and came up to stay with me for a few nights. We talked a little bit about my feelings, but he mostly sought to distract me, smoking weed and playing video games. On the Wednesday 10 days after Morag had died he asked what I wanted to do. I wanted to get out of the house – I suggested going to see Avengers: Endgame at the cinema. He said he had already seen it but said he would love to watch it again. As we got to the cinema I had my first little twinge as I realised Morag would never get to see this film. For those that don’t know, Avengers Endgame was a significant film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, reflecting the culimantion of 10+ years of movies. Around the same time the finale of Game of Thrones was showing – another one of Morag and my favourites. These little realisations hurt more than the bigger losses sometimes.

I went in looking forward to being distracted for a bit. And the movie started. I honestly don’t think I could have picked a worse film. The clue was in the title, Endgame. And (spoiler warning) alot of people die, and alot of the film is about death and bereavement and adjusting to loss. The film starts setting the scene that half the world population has gone (no symbolism there right?). An early part of the film talks about getting the Power stone from planet ‘Morag’. I mean what the fucking hell? I looked over at Jay with a look of ‘Is the Universe just playing with me now?’ To be honest, it was so horrendously inappropriate it almost went full circle and became funny again. Besides, I was still riding the numb train. When I came to re-watch the film at home when my grief was in full flow a few months later, I was crying for days. Right now, it just added to the surreal situation. The film ends with someone dying, and their partner hiding their emotions to help make that person’s passing less painful. It was eerily familiar to my own experience.

People bereaved often talk about triggers for their waves of grief, a smell, a piece of music, a place. Just imagine how many triggers there are for the person you’ve spent every day with for 12 years being gone. Its not just stimulus that send your mind to that person, its your own thoughts. You are so ‘wired’ into that person it leaves you feeling very raw and like you are missing a limb. Little thoughts that get filed in the ‘to tell Morag’, now bounce back with the unwelcome realisation – ‘well no, you can’t tell her about that, she’s dead’. No easy way around this unfortunately, you just need to process it and keep making that ‘mistake’ until your brain learns not to do it anymore.

Jamie seemed to be doing ok. I was finding it very difficult to know what he needed. The broad guidance I had was to be honest with him, but in language that he could understand. I was quickly learning that no guidance is sufficient. If your child asks you an awkward question, if you panic and change the subject they will start to fill in the gaps in their understanding themselves. And at the same time you cannot get a script to help, every kid is different. And you may give an answer that feels great and right, and you get a little lift thinking ‘I’ve got this’, and then he would come out with a follow-up question to put you on your knees. I know Jamie kept asking me ‘Where is Mummy?’. I was so self-deprecating about how the first time I answered this I had said ‘with angels’. I had read a few bereavement books with Jamie that talked about the concept of death but Jamie seemed fixated on this question of where she was. Now alot of the reading I had done and experts I spoke to at Winstons Wish said that he doesn’t understand death, but my Daddy spider-sense was telling me that he did have a grasp of the concept, but where is she? I remember when I called the Winston’s Wish helpline, they told me to try and bring Jamie’s attention to bugs and other natural life around us in the Summer, and use them to talk about life and death. When you have a fly buzzing around your house ask him, ‘What’s that fly doing? Its moving, its eating, its making noises, its alive’ and then when you inevitably find a dead one you ask the same questions “What this fly doing? Why do you think its not moving? Do you think its in pain?”… But the first time I tried this with Jamie, “What’s this fly doing?” he looked at me like I was an idiot and said ‘Its dead’. Too smart for his own good. For the moment when he asked where Mummy was I just kept saying she has gone and he cannot see her anymore. The idea of trying to explain a morgue, or cremation or being buried terrified me. I think in retrospect, I would be happy to take Jamie to see her, to give her a last hug in the morgue. And I would have taken him to the funeral. The problem was I felt so fragile that whilst I was keen for Jamie to be able to see my emotions, to see me so distraught I thought would scare him.

It didnt help that Morag’s parents said that we should only ‘answer questions’ when Jamie asks them. They had this advice from an old friend of theirs who used to be a children’s bereavement officer. The problem was that the guidance I had is that if you don’t engage with your kids about your own grief or make them aware they can ask you questions then they can start to internalise things. On a child level, ‘Daddy doesn’t seem sad or upset or to be missing mummy, maybe I shouldn’t be missing or asking about her…’. You are effectively teaching your kids how to grieve. Problem is, we don’t know how to grieve either! I was tying myself in knots for ages about Jamie, but then one day I realised, there is no road map for this, and as scary as the responsibility is, noone knows my son better than me. I will do my best and simply knowing how much I agonise over it is half the reason I will do an ok job. What really helped me was when Jay’s wife, Kate, said that you cannot create these horrible emotions in Jamie. You can trigger them, but they were always there. And you kind of need to trigger them to help him learn how to explore and manage them. That primal parenting instinct of ‘not wanting to hurt your child’ needs to be thought through. I think of it like a swimming lesson, you have to get the kid in the pool to teach him how to swim.

I’m very lucky to have an amazing son that keeps me moving forwards, but I have to remind myself Jamie is lucky to have me as a father. He is going to get more love and support from me than some people get from two parents.

Introducing me…

Why blog? Why Running for Safety?

My name is Ian, I am 34 years old. I am a father to the best 3 year old son in the world (sorry to the rest of you). I am a widower.

Why do this?

I had always toyed with the idea of blogging. Wanting to help people in the way other blogs had helped me, but also hoping that the process would be cathartic. When my wife was diagnosed with cancer, I started a just giving page and started training for a 10K. I am the opposite of an athlete but the journey to and beyond the 10K is something worth sharing.

I don’t think I would have ever actually gotten around to starting the blog if it was not for an insane series of events that you will learn about later. This includes a monkey, a deer and a rabbit. So obviously I’m hoping Pixar will come calling too…

Please feel free to get in touch if you are going through anything similar, I am happy to talk through my experiences or just listen – if it would help.

Much love to you all.