Hi Annemarie.
Totally understand what you are saying, before we lost a child how many Christmas,s have we all experienced that for one reason or another didn’t turn out like we wanted but we would give our back teeth to go back and do it again
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Hi all
I am so glad I am.not the only one who hates this time of year. Being a bereaved parent is the worst. I hate the shopping, planning, and everything that goes with it. I do all shopping online so i don’t have to be in town seeing harassed people being happy. Seeing people look at xmas decorations and the inevitable xmas music. I avoid all xmas movies and special shows by only watching things I record and therefore manage to fast forward all the xmas adverts. I wish I could escape the dreaded xmas card writing. I am lucky in that I live alone and can avoid things as best I can. I have a best friend that invites me every year and I go only to make her happy. It is devastating to sit round someone else’s xmas table with all their family when the death of my son was the catalyst that broke my family. My husband became abusive to us all. Especially me. My kids won’t talk to me, withhold my grandchildren. I get to see 1 grandchild and that is truly the only reason I am still here. I had 4 children lost 1 in a dreadful car accident and the other 3 and 3 grandchildren due to the abuse. I have been in therapy for 2 and a half yrs for the abuse and am also in group therapy. My husband was put on the sex offenders register for what he did 2 me. Yet our daughter still has a relationship with him even though he told her what he did 2 me and she had to give evidence in court. Somehow it is all my fault. It is impossible to know how much more I can take b4 I am completely broken. This year I am finding it the hardest to put on that fake smile and pretend to be excited for what is always the hardest day of the year. I have been in bed for a few days now and have no interest in getting up. I also had a very triggering appointment at the audiology clinic on Friday where the man was very inappropriate in things he said to me and referred to himself as a dirty old man because of it. I don’t know if I have the strength to even send an email to complain about what he said. I just can’t keep fighting for a shell of an existence x
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Dear Pauline, I wish there was something I could say to make you feel better but just know that I am thinking of you. I don’t understand why losing a child can be such a catalyst for hate but it has happened in my family too, with my sister.
When I decided to go back to work 9 months after losing Gemma, I saw a man from Occupational Health
(I work for the NHS). He was so horrible and inappropriate, I fled in tears and sat in my car shaking for ages before I could even drive. But later I decided that he was not going to make my life even worse so called the office and they found me another lady to help me. She was a star and got me back into work.
I hope you meet some angels along the way too xxx
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Dear Victoria
Thank u so much for ur kind words. U would think a death would bring people closer as we never know what is round the corner. It is just awful that it destroys families. I have plucked up the courage and sent an email complaining about this man. It’s all just so damaging.
I am so sorry for the loss of Gemma and the inappropriate behaviour of someone who was supposed to be helping u. I guess we don’t expect any level of inappropriate behaviour in any medical situation and I think that makes it even worse. I hope I find an angel along the way as well.
Love and hugs Pauline x
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So glad you have emailed a complaint … we need to be brave 
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Hi Victoria
Thanks for the support. It’s just so awful having to do it and put it context of what I have been thru to demonstrate the severity of my reaction to something someone else would have found amusing or complementary. It’s a wound that won’t heal like our grief. I have neighbours that lost their son this year. I am dreading writing their xmas card as I know how it feels to want to shred all those cards wishing u a happy xmas and good wishes for the next year. It just never ends.
Love and hugs Pauline x
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Hi Pauline and Victoria - you are right losing a child destroys families. People behave badly and say and do the most destructive and cruel things. Often the very people we thought would be for us, just turn into something else. Christmas is something I’m trying not to think about. It’s still almost unbelievable that my girl won’t be here to see it. Sending you all the hugs your deserve xxxxxx
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Hi Nell22
Before I posted the first time I really thought it was just my family it had destroyed. I am sorry to hear all ur stories that match my own but am thankful to know I am not alone. I used to think it would get better with time. I mean all of it coping with my sons death, the destruction of my family. Time doesn’t heal anything. I just get better at hiding it from others and when I can’t cope I just stay in my bedroom. I don’t want to leave my room, open curtains, put on a light incase someone knocks on the door. Which is a joke really. I will be 53 in a couple of months, live alone and hide in my room. How much more pathetic can I be. It’s the only way I know how to cope. I don’t have work to get up for as I am medically retired with mobility issues. I have nothing to get up for unless I am getting to see my grandson. He is my only reason to carry on. I put all my love into him. He is my only family member. It’s his birthday next weekend so am hoping I will get a chance to see him either this week or next for a few hours. I tell him all about his uncle he never met.
Lots of love and hugs to all of us who struggle at anytime of year but particularly when we r all suppose to be big happy families
Pauline x
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Hi all.
Bit unrelated to what’s being talked about on the thread at the moment.
Watched a random film tonight about a man whose young daughter goes missing and the inevitable happens. The film wasn’t about the girl but more about the father carrying the life changing pain of guilt and anger along with all the other emotions that go along with it.
Obviously his and his families lives are altered and they all struggle to live with each other after the death of the daughter. Anyhow the man gets involved in a minor car accident, but while he’s unconscious he gets to visit god in a deep dream. Long story short . He berates God for not preventing the death of his daughter. The gist of the film is for God to get the man to let go of all his guilt,anger , sorrow and blame. For the man to find his way again, because he’s been so lost
Now I’m the least religious person you will find. I’ve never believed in any of it. But this film spoke to me. I said to my wife, if only life was that simple that we get to go and find out all the answers to the questions that fill our heads after the loss of a child. If someone could explain all the feelings of guilt and anger, the feeling that you’ve lost your Way in life. The feeling of hopelessness. The constant feeling of yearning. The film takes the man on an emotional journey to try and break down all his feelings and explain that sometimes things just happen and there is no one to blame. We have to learn to let go of the guilt and anger. Very easy in a film, not so much in real life.
As a parent to loose a child of any age under any circumstance, cuts to the core. We loose ourselves aswell. It’s life altering. We become somebody else. You gain a 6th sense. You get to see things from a very different point of view. You pick up on stuff that at one time would have past you by. I don’t know about you lot but I feel I can read people’s faces far more than I ever could before, I can see things in people’s eyes. Things I never saw before. Is that because loosing my son has fine tuned my mind to feel things I never did before. I don’t know ?. I know I sit downstairs in the small hours most nights of the week trying to contemplate what loosing my boy actually means.
You never think or imagine you will loose your child but when you do it leaves an enormous great cavern. It feels like you spend the rest of your life wandering aimlessly just on the perimeter of what normal life should be. I suppose the first step is to forgive ourselves. But I’m a long way off doing that. My boy died on my shift.
Ok thanks for listening.
Take care
Jim
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Hi Jim10
It would be great if u could tell me the name of the movie u watched. I 2 spend the small hours of the night unable to sleep going over a million unanswered questions. I am also not religious but I find everything glosses over the reality of a childs death regardless of age. I think I would find the realism in this movie helpful. I am 10 yrs along this bereaved parent track and have found nothing to be of any help until I chanced upon this site. Finding others who are struggling like me has helped me feel less isolated in my grief. Friends, acquaintances just expect me to be over it by now. I don’t think this gaping hole in my heart will ever heal. Yearly I think would he be married now, have children etc. A life he barely started and all the Hope’s and dreams for his life just gone on that 1 day. A day I relive every day over and over. It’s a trauma that has no end.
Love and hugs to all bereaved parents
Pauline x
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Hi Pauline. The film is called . The shack. I didn’t set out to watch it. I had no idea what it was about before hand. But bits of it certainly resonated with me.
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Jim, so spot on as usual. Those 6 words encapsulates it all “ my boy died on my shift” no more words necessary , cuts like a knife , I for one know the guilt and the emotional tsunami that comes along with that feeling. That’s how it is , we looked out for them , how did it happen, how to deal with the guilt.
I shall look out for that film. Thanks for sharing .
Jss
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Everyone around me, my family and friends, all say I am not to blame at all that Joey died, that he was diagnosed so late, that his cancer could not be stopped in spite of all the efforts by his medical team and the big guns they took out.
Although there are some regrets I will eventually be able to deal with, this guilt is not one of them. Jim, you used the term, he died on your watch. What I tell myself and those around me: I simply wasn’t mindful enough, I was sleeping on the job. Same thing. And it’s a cross I shall have to bear till the day I die, no matter what people, well-meaning though they may be, tell me.
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Hi Jim
Thank u for sharing. I am going to look for that movie. There is no peace we find as bereaved parents. It is not something we ever contemplate to out live a child. Once it happens it is something we live with every day. Some days we can smile and fake it and others we r swallowed whole by the enormity of our loss. We wonder how to bare the burden of grief. Sometimes its day by day and others its second by second. Distraction only works for so long and then we r swept away by another wave. It is a constant battle to live without them.
Love and hugs
Pauline x
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Dear Jim, I have read the book and saw the film after I lost Gemma. I do have a faith although it has been tested! The film is very thought provoking and is comforting. We will see our children again but it is very difficult having to live without them. xxx
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Hi all everyone is deeply broken .life will never be the same .life changes forever .like you i sit up to the early hours . Our minds going back and fourth to sonething we cant fix . We all just want our children . Its not ment to be this way .there whole lifes should be ahead of them its wicked .sending everyone love and hugs. Xxxx
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Hi Helen thinking about you today on the anniversary of your sam sending you a big hug
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Zoe,
Thank you, I am in Dorset, sat by a lovely fire drinking too muchh wine (please excuse me if this doesn’t make sense) with John and my lovely best friend Janice, we had a thai meal and now just sat here quiet.
We had a red admiral butterly in the bedroom when we got here and a robin in the garden. Sam will always be around me I know that and I miss him so much, Geraint (my eldest) said to me forget the 9th it’s a shit day just celebrate his birthday, but like I said to him by text that date it’s emblazoned on my brain.
love Helen
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Helen, thinking of you
Love Chris x
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