No home to return to this time. A few months ago, we were feeling un-anchored while planning our upcoming summer-break in the UK. No home to return to this time.

I sat down, thinking, this was a chance to make a home in another part of the UK for a few weeks, wondering where that might be. By the sea. Somewhere quiet and quirky, not-too-long a train-ride from London. Devon! We’d spent a delightful few days with friends there  last year. I looked up houses for short lets and a cabin appeared. It was available for the duration. It was solely solar powered with a good fridge-freezer and all amenities. Most of all it boasted of an array of outdoor spaces. The photographs were a feast. We booked it before it was taken. In our minds our holiday had begun.

On the day, our hosts were at the car park to receive us and help us with our luggage. They asked us if we knew the story of the garden on the clifftop, where our cabin was located. We didn’t.

Jason was an accomplished young geologist, working at a Diamond mine in Angola.

“On 8th November 1998, the Yetwene mine was attacked by rebels. Several of his colleagues were killed and Jason along with 3 expatriates and 5 Angolans were last seen being herded into the bush.  For many years the families were led to believe their men folk were alive.  What followed the disappearance of the men is a story still waiting to be told. When someone ‘disappears’ in such circumstances, it means there is no defined moment when ALL family members can accept the missing person IS dead.  Each person comes to accept that inevitability at different times, in different ways – and even then, there can be an extended period of time when you believe he’s dead but hope he’s alive.  Oscillating between those two states.  He must be dead, but he may be alive!

When the hammer fell signalling this plot was now the Pope family’s – it was an emotional moment for Nev and Alan.  Did it mean they both accepted their son was dead? (Sadly, the answer was “No”.)”

Of all the places we could’ve landed up in, we are here, in a memorial garden by the sea, with the family of a young man who did not come home, a family that actively sought answers, remembered and talked about things and lives that matter.

Can anyone claim to know which is worse?

Knowing your son is dead or not knowing if he is?

This question is invalid as no one can judge any loss as ‘good’, ‘better’ or ‘worse’. I cannot know how Nev felt then and how she feels now. She cannot know how I feel. Sometimes I can hardly identify my own feelings. How can I claim to know anything of others? No one can. It may be a good guess but only in the head. Not in the bones, the middle of the chest. Not in the pull of gravity.

This is a joyful garden of fragrant pink roses and hand-made big-eyed metallic spiders, massive and tiny, dotted around. It has a playful feel to it. It is clearly, all about love.

If the path of grief is a loving humbling pilgrimage, this is a perfect shelter along the way.

(Resource: Circle of Remembrance – peer-led support groups for bereaved parents)