Good grief, if there is such a thing (My Experience Of Bereavement)

Member Name: wishywalshy

Product:	My Experience Of Bereavement
Date:	25/03/01 (385 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: None

Disadvantages: Can destroy yours and others lives

Being my hundredth opinion, I have thought long and hard about this one.
I’d like to make this as informative as possible, but with without it being an epic essay.(I know I can hear you tittering from there)

So here goes.
Bereavement is not the ideal topic for you all to read but I feel that it is very relevant and as dear old Dooyoo have so kindly provided a box for my experience of bereavement I feel that it is obviously a viable choice in which to write something that I know about only too well.
As it would be his 4th birthday later this week, I feel qualified to write this opinion and to state that although so so different, life does go on, though not a day goes by without a thought of him, this week is different to every other week in the year for me.

Some of you may be aware that in 1997 we had a premature baby Liam who died at 8 days.
According to statistics 95% of 28 week babies do make it, and with hindsight we never expected him to be one of the 5% that didn’t.
Our lives surrounded a tiny little boy, encased in a Perspex box, surrounded by wires and tubes whom we had pinned all our hopes upon.
We felt joy, sadness, happiness hopefulness, and finally great sadness as we watched his fight.
He looked exactly like his dad, same nose, same ginger hair.

The grief that followed was intense and almost unbearable to cope with at times.

I remember if I really try, and believe me I try not to most of the time, the whole series of events that night, from the deathly cold feeling to the euphoria, as he would fight back, and then sink lower, and fight back some more, and then sink lower still.
I even at one stage just wished for it to be over, and then in the next breath wished that these precious moments would go on forever, selfishly so really.
Nothing could have prepared me for the inevitable, the sheer pain and numbness of the whole situation in indescribable, just too painful to re
call and write, but if you have walked that path you will know.

I felt that my whole life was over, and to be quite honest, the 10th floor of the hospital was calling me that night. And I think I would have let it beat me, had I not had a fleeting thought of my two little girls at home in bed, oblivious to the change that was
about the interrupt their “normal” lives.

Firstly there was the utter disbelief, and the feeling of being in some horrible nightmare, and that I would awaken and that everything would be normal, I would still be pregnant, and everything would be fine.
I would feel my son moving around and the terrible dream would be over.
I was convinced that my mum and dad would make everything all right, but in heart I just knew it wasn’t so.
Bill, my long-suffering hubby has always been able to sort anything out, and he just couldn’t this time, so I felt extremely angry with him too.
I felt so annoyed because I didn’t have any control over the situation

Then there was the major guilt trip, had I done something wrong, was I not meticulous enough, should I have seen the signs. (My dog knew something was up, even when we didn’t).
I was so convinced that I had done something so wrong, and that my son died because of it.
It has only been very recently that that feeling has diminished because we received his hospital notes clearly stating that the hospital were actually at fault, not me, nor my family.

The endless nights of sleeplessness and sighs, and long teary days filled with memories and thoughts of what should have been served as a constant reminder.
Well meaning people who didn’t know of the arrival and sudden departure of Liam asked how the pregnancy was going, only to have their heads bitten off, or have their questions answered in a blurt of tears followed by a dash upstairs.

I didn’t want the tablets to dry up my milk, I wanted t
he reminder that Liam had existed, and to a degree cherished every drop.
Nor did I want the chemical sleeping tablets or anti depressants “The drugs don’t work they just make you worse”, everything would have been the same but still there the next day or the next, or the next.
I surrounded myself with as much cannabis as I could get down my neck, I ate it and smoked it, no-one dared argue with me, I didn’t care what people thought, I just didn’t care about most things.
Sometimes it made me sleep, but more importantly it made me eat, something that I had real problems doing.

There was no available support in Plymouth at the time; in fact I had to demand to keep my notes, as they were all that I had to show for the brief life that I had borne.
There was a branch of SANDS(Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Society in Bristol), and Cruise bereavement organisations, but nothing in the area catering for us.

The internet was my saviour, always having loathed the machine that had Bill so engrossed for hours on end, I was jealous of it.

A few days later, I discovered that the support that I desperately sought was going to come from strangers thousands of miles away, none of whom I knew, but all of them linked so closely by one common factor. Their child had died.
Somebody else had been there and was living proof that it is possible to come out of it, somewhat changed, but still here.
To my amazement many of the other parents had also written journals to their child, and expressed their grief and anguish in poetry to their departed children, which would always make me cry, yet would make me feel so happy knowing that I was not completely alone with my dark thoughts.

To a degree I was bitter towards my other children, discipline was the last thing on my mind, I could think of nothing else by my son.
It was not done never deliberately, that was just how it was, and how jealous was I to hea
r of premature babies that I had been in hospital actually coming home relatively unscathed by their ordeal, I am not proud of that, but is how it was .
My good friend was in hospital with her son born early and she got to take him home, my other friend had twins, and she got to take them both home.
I was just so so sad, never in a sinister way, just completely gutted.

The first week after his death was the worst time of my life, so many explanations, and so much paperwork to be completed.
I didn’t sleep or eat, I just cried, and when the tears ran out, I would whimper and sigh, until sheer exhaustion overtook me, and I would drift off to sleep.

The birth announcements in the local paper were succeeded by obituaries, congratulations cards replaced with sympathy cards, bouquets with wreathes and so on and so forth.

I found it very difficult to even look at Bill, because I was so aware of the similarities between the two, yet I knew that I would never get to see Liam all grown up.
Instead of facing him as I tried fruitlessly to sleep I had to face away, and the television was my night time companion, I was afraid of the dark and what it had brought me in the past.(I still nod off with the telly on)

We had never arranged a funeral for an older member of the family, let alone a small baby, so we didn’t know what the norm was, and to be frank we didn’t care, we did what we thought was right, right for him and right for us too. The feeling of numbness and complete despair were my only companions that day. Everyone else was there, but to this day I don’t remember exactly who came, I vividly see the picture of Bill carrying Liam’s tiny casket through the doors of the crematorium, and tenderly placing it on the little designated place, I don’t remember much more, just the void and hopelessness of the situation as the curtains slid past, and I knew that I would see him no more except in m
y dreams.

Supposed friends were dropping like flies, and the strongest friendships broken, because they just didn’t know what to say, or more to the point how we would react to it.

People just didn’t have a clue, and nor did we either.

Everywhere I looked, people were either pregnant or had babies, on the television and in real life.

The months that followed were difficult to say the least.

I turned into a shop aholic, spending all the money whenever I could, because it made me feel better for a little while. I bought extravagant presents for the children hoping that it would make them happy. Knowing deep down that they were hurting as much as we were.

I developed a fascination for stars and moons and bought anything that had them on along with angel trinkets, my house is still adorned with them.
I was the most unpredictable character I know, flipping at the most trivial thing, yet so tolerant at the most extreme events.
This was no postnatal depression.

It took me many weeks to learn to smile again, and months to laugh; always feeling extremely guilty when I did so, worried about what others would think.

It soon became a daily task, of putting the imaginary mask up and pretending that everything was all right, yet deep down I was devastated, and occasionally the mask would slip and my vulnerability would show, as would the tears.
I became a loner for some time, and would often drive around for hours, just driving and listening to the tape that we had put together for Liam’s funeral music, I never tired of listening to it, or rewinding and listening to it again.

Certain tunes on the radio would send me back to where I had been, I would have lifted myself up, and I would appear to all others to be coming out of it, when I would suddenly hit a hurdle and fall flat on my face, like the sea and tides, ebbing and flowing.
Some days were okay, some were hideo
us, and sometimes, I just wouldn’t want to get up in the morning, or the afternoon, or even the evening come to think of it.
When people asked me how I was I would always say “Getting there”

As a direct result of some fundraising Liam’s plight was published in a local paper spurring a mammoth effort on the part of the readers, my family and remaining friends to launch the Shine a Light appeal, because the Neonatal unit needed a new photo therapy light, nothing at all to do with Katrina and the Waves Love Shine a light song, which appeared in the Eurovision song contest days before the article was published.
This song eventually became our theme song.

Now provided with a diversion, life became more bearable again, with days spent printing T-shirts and organising events.
Though I still couldn’t mention his name without becoming choked up and being extremely emotional.
I knew why I was doing the fundraising, yet found it easier to detach myself from the real reasoning behind it all.

My life revolved around how we were going to raise the next target amount, and my journal that I continued to write, which contained all of my inner, most thoughts.
I still couldn’t sleep, and I was still getting there.

As his birthday approached, the grief became more intense and to say I was a bitch was an understatement, I became the most pessimistic person that I knew unable to see a good side to anything.
His 1st birthday was almost as bad as the day that he died, knowing deep down that I should have been putting a birthday tea on for him and his little friends, yet I was sat on the land letting balloons go in his honour with little happy birthday notes attached.
My friends and I even shared a cake and sang him Happy Birthday.

The turning point in my grief came when I discovered that I was pregnant again.
It was difficult to be optimistic, when the past had been so cruel to
us.
I so much wanted a baby, not to replace Liam, that was never an option, but to fill the void that had been left by him.
I genuinely did not enjoy one moment of being pregnant, as I really believed that my world would come crashing down again. Yet I knew that in order to continue, we had to have hope.
We refused to tell anyone for a while, because I was too afraid of hearing” It’s a bit soon isn’t it”

Everything went along nicely until 33 weeks, Liam’s due date a year previously, when exactly the same happened again, my waters had broken and I was back in the same place with the same walls, the same people, and the same fears.
Our little girl was born a week later amidst much trepidation and fears, and whisked off to the special care baby unit.

The feelings of a year past were only too evident.
I couldn’t go back into the unit, it wasn’t that I didn’t want to go in there, I just couldn’t, I couldn’t allow myself to get that attached again only to have it all taken away from me.
I spent the first day of my daughter’s life, as far away from her as possible. I know, it sounds awful doesn’t it, but I was afraid.
Within a day she was out of intensive care, and with me.
As it dawned on me that she would make, a new wave of grief hit me, I was doing everything for her that I hadn’t for Liam, and that was really difficult to cope with.
Every little look, and every little gurgle renewed the grief.

She developed jaundice, and by pure fluke the light that would be needed would be the light that we had bought with the funds from the Shine a Light Appeal, which by now had been paid for and presented proudly displaying a brass plaque “Let the love light carry” presented by the Liam Walsh Shine a Light appeal.

I was a little disappointed that she was a girl, but that did not for one minute make any difference to my fee
lings towards her.
As we finally took her home, I could not help but be reminded that was yet another milestone that Liam had never passed. She sat in his car seat and the tears flowed freely.

To say I was overprotective was an understatement, we had bleepers, and baby alarms, and every conceivable extra that you could think of.

Each subsequent birthday seemed to be more bearable, although tear-filled, his birthday was classed as a celebration of his life, and his anniversary was the time to mourn his departure.


As time drew on, and the Appeal was wound down, I was yet again filled with grief, I believe that I had been so engrossed in other things; I had delayed the natural course that grief is supposed to take.
It was only then it hit me again, this time full force.
We had by then another baby, again tiny, but healthy, and after her emergency entrance into this world there was no time to continue the charity.
I had run out of energy and time.

The appeal finally finished with an extremely healthy balance, which was handed over to the intensive care unit.
The article was published on the Sunday, and by 12.20 am the next day my dad passed away peacefully in his sleep after a long illness.
This time, I could not cope, and hit the anti depressants hard.
Not only had the light gone out, I had lost one of the other most important men and influences in my entire life, it was almost as if the end of an era had dawned.

The feeling of raw grief came back with full force, and I was right back to where I had been three and a half years ago.
My days were again filled with sighs and sobs, it was if the grief had caught up with me, and was punishing me for having been able to block it out so efficiently.

Now I was starting to remember, and sought the services of a counsellor, who was a really nice bloke and listened to all that I had to say, all about the guilt and denial, all about the ang
er and hurt that was bubbling inside, and turning me from a quite likeable balanced person to some hideous unpredictable monster who would have been happy to belt anyone in my path.

Eventually I was able to accept that there are some things that you do not have control over.
Personally I feel that the counsellor really benefited both my family and me, I certainly wish that I had had the courage to visit him long ago.
That does not mean for one minute that a certain song on the radio can’t send me back there, but that I now have the capability to drag myself back up again.
I have learned to accept that I cannot change the past and that there will always be reminders around me.

I do believe that I am a changed person, I have far more patience and a greater degree of compassion than I ever had before Liam.

I have learned so much in the last 4 years.

And my son, who wasn’t here long, helped to teach it to me.

Love your children, Live without regret.

I am sorry I didn’t mean this to be quite as long as this, thank you for reading this far.


Remembering forever with neverending love, all of the little angels, sliding down the moonbeams swinging from the stars

Love, Luck and Lullabies
Trina Walsh



Dedicated to memory of Liam Walsh 28/3/97-4/5/97 and all of the other little ones who live on in their parents hearts forever.


Your GP can put you in touch with a Counselor, or on the web I found;-

Some useful website addresses are
http://www.inforamp.net/~bfo/spals/spals_info. html
This is a subsequent pregnancy after loss group.
http://www.sandsvic.org.au/
The Stillbirth and neonatal death society
http://www.babyloss.com/
Baby loss is a web based support group.
http://www.groww.com/
Grief recovery online

These sites are based across the world, as resources in th Uk are few and far betwee
n.
The Samaritans are always on the end of the phone, don't wait til it is too late, if you need them phone them.

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