I was deeply saddened to hear of the death of Lizzy D’s son. I was on holiday at the time, so I had some moments to reflect on my own experience. I penned the following short piece which I offer with sincerest sympathy.
People sometimes think that because you’ve been through a bereavement you acquire some wisdom that might help other people in their sadness and loss. This is not so . The most that you can give is to share your experience. It may be of no use whatsoever or it may offer some small help albeit only after some time has passed.
The passing of time is not, as some would say, a healer. The loss of a child is a sorrow that remains with you for the rest of your life. Time may teach you how best to carry the burden, but its weight becomes yours for the rest of your life. It would be strange if this were not so.
I have lost a child and I know from bitter experience how deeply the blade cuts into the fibres of your heart. The ordered world that once you knew is now a land of nonsense where just about everything that you once took for granted now seems ephemeral and of small consequence. For the remaining years of your life you are required to find a new focus and a new way of looking at things.
It is now three years and I am slowly, very slowly coming to terms with a new landscape.
To give you an example, and one that happens frequently; sitting at the traffic lights I glance sideways and I see his face in the car next to me. It isn’t him but for a fleeting moment it seems that it might be. I have grown used to this now and I see these moments as blessings, because they have become reminders, no more, of a presence that once was mine. There are of course so many other ways in which I am reminded: the smell of an after shave, his pullover, his music, and the tiny sachet of fine white dust that I keep in a varnished box on my bedside table.
Each day brings brief and quiet interludes, moments of solemn remembrance and breathless yearning. Up until quite recently these often resulted in tears falling but this is not always the case now and increasingly often I am able to smile. I’ve come to know that those past years where once we lived together are fixed and sure. There is no power in the universe that can take them away and for as long as my memory prevails I am able to hold them close.
People sometimes ask me if I carry a burden of guilt. No, I do not. Parental love is a primaeval force. It is love of the deepest kind; on the one hand supremely protective, on the other realistic. We know that our children will one day outgrow us. They will make their own way, choose their own paths. We can advise, console, and to a point we can rescue, but we can never live the life of our child. We have to let go. It can be terrifying but apart from a sentence of solitary confinement, it is a risk we must take.
I have sometimes stood under one of those beautiful English summer skies. The mottled clouds are interspersed with moments of blue. With each passing year those moments grow so slightly larger. Yes, there will always be clouds but I know that he would want me to enjoy the blue whilst at the same time feeling deeply touched in knowing that the clouds were mine also.
I will carry many questions with me for the rest of my life. Perhaps those questions will never ever be answered. Our salvation lies not in knowledge but in love. Whatever the truth may be it cannot help me take the next steps. Only the love of those around me and of course his love for me and my love for him, and God, can provide the impetus to climb the next stair.
Love bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things…..
© Judas was Paid 2025
