Long shadows

Posted by kidsaregifts20

A few months after Day 0, at a SOBS (Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide) meeting at the All Saints near Euston, I met a father who said, “Eight years” when I asked him how long it had been since his son died. I looked at his face as if he was the most spectacular and wondrous impossibility of the world. Is it possible to live as long as that after the death of a child? He was proof. It was. I had never seen anyone who had been bereaved that long, standing and smiling and speaking sense.

Last Monday I joined the 3 dads on the last leg of their long walk to Westminster alongside many people who want the government to add suicide awareness and helpful resources to the school curriculum. We walked and talked in the rain. I said ‘Nearly eight years’ in response to how long has it been since my son passed. I got the same look from a young mum recently bereaved. She stopped and looked into my eyes through the thick rain drops. Past and future, face to face. “Gosh! Does it get any easier?” she asked. It does, I replied, holding her hands.

All these years I have tried to keep Saagar alive in every way I could – writing, public speaking, teaching Youth Mental Health First Aid courses, advocating for young people, working with various people, charities, NHS, Churchill Trust and other organisations, making films and so on.

I have read other people’s accounts of loss, hoping to lessen my pain and deepen my understanding. The latest book I read was ‘The Year of Magical Thinking’ by Joan Didion. She says:

“I know why we try to keep the dead alive: we try to keep them alive in order to keep them with us.

I also know that if we are to live ourselves there comes a point at which we must relinquish the dead, let them go, keep them dead.

Let them become the photograph on the table.

Let them become the name on the Trust accounts.

Let go of them in the water.

Knowing this does not make it easier to let go of him in the water.”

Eight years! No time at all.

“Time is the school in which we learn.

Time is the fire in which we burn.”

Delmore Schwartz.

Where I live.

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One or two years after Saagar, continuing to live here, in this house was painful. Everything screamed his name – the road from the station to our house that he did not take, our vet, our cat, our dentist, our GP Surgery and pharmacy, our local shops and cafés, our bins, his school, our neighbours, our radio and TV. Everything yelled out his absence.

The thought of moving away filled me with a terrible sense that I would be leaving him behind. As long as I lived here, this would be his home. What if, one day he was to return? I should be here to receive him. I ironed his full-sleeved light brown t-shirt, a set of dark blue Super-dry sports trousers and kept them ready for use. His Vans shoes too, for that same reason. The boring, practical, Virgo, me. I couldn’t have gone anywhere.

Nearly eight years on, I have come to inhabit my body in a way that my home is where I am. I am comfortable here. Now he’s not separate from me. His home is inside my body once again. He lives in me as love. Divine love. It’s not possible for me to leave him behind ever. He goes everywhere with me, as my beating heart, my smile and my tears. We both share a home. His light shines through my eyes and his laughter rings through my chuckles. I can’t be without him no matter where I am. There is no insecurity. I am free and so is he.

Twenty-two years ago, I traveled from New Delhi to London with my eyes full of dreams and a suitcase full of books. Soon, I shall be crossing the oceans in the other direction, heading back with Si, with absolutely nothing to lose.

Bed number 19.

Posted by kidsaregifts20

I never really left. I was always there. At home with my folks. Even when I flew across oceans, a part of me remained at home. The part that refused to leave. The rest of me has been homesick since that day.

The first time I was to leave my Motherland, India, twenty-three years ago, my dad noticed I was close to tears at the airport. He said, “Chin up my dear. Remember who you are and how proud we are of you.”

Two weeks back he had a routine surgery on his neck that has left him unable to breathe adequately for now. He has received all the support he needs in a timely and gentle manner. For a while he was sedated but when he came out of it, the first thing he verbalised on seeing my mum and I was ‘I love you.’

Two days back I left him again. This time in an Intensive Care Unit bed. Bed number 19. I left his doctors, my brothers, my mother and all the extended family in-charge of him and of each other. I left a list of plans, strategies and resources. I left not knowing what happens next. I left as I breathed and meditated and pleaded with the Gods to heal him.

Once again, I see the fragility of human life. I witness people and situations in a constant state of flux, the tide of hope rising and plunging, our uneven shallow breaths and his, our collective helplessness, the tentative stepping forward and standing back, the engagement of distant Healers, the comforting holding and massaging of hands, hours of sitting in air-conditioned rooms and waiting, second-guessing other’s needs, the tender wetting of lips and applying Vaseline, the daily mid-morning updates that set the tone for the day.

Walking purposefully through hospital corridors is something I’ve done a lot of. But this time it’s me who’s walking through them, lost and vacant.

After four weeks, we hope to return home for a longish time. The very thought makes my heart sing. May Mother Nature do its magical, mysterious dance – make things worse and then, make them better again.

No words.

Posted by kidsaregifts20

Two years back, it could not be screened as scheduled. After a long wait, last weekend it was, at Clapham Picture house where Saagar often went with his friends. People came from Leicester, Salford, Cornwall, Cardiff and Birmingham. Some, I had only ever seen on screen. Others, when they were school kids. They brought their sisters, spouses, friends and colleagues. They stayed for hours afterwards, talking about themselves in a way they never had. They fell in love with Saagar’s big brown eyes and mischievous smile. They saw what a treasure had been carelessly lost. Everyone felt something. Many had no words but there was a profusion of overdue hugs all around. Many felt they knew him even though they had never met him. Some introductions were made to link up the leaders from various sectors of society so they could form stronger and safer networks.

That woman in the film was not just me. She spoke for the fifteen families in the UK, who are plunged into this harsh reality every day. More than 6500 every year.

That young man in the film was not just Saagar, but everyone who has ever blamed themselves for their troubles and felt shame for things that have happened to them, hiding behind their beautiful smiles. Unseen. Unheard. Each one who lost their tribe and couldn’t find a way back.

These were not just Saagar’s friends, but all those who are left behind, trying to figure out how this could happen to someone they loved. Wondering what they could have done then and what they can do now.

This film laments a future lost. It mourns silent suffering. It also illuminates a path that appears out of darkness. It also celebrates love and smiles. It also gives us permission to soften, lighten, loosen. It breaks open our hearts so we can hear the unspoken pain that lies behind the mask of another face and our own. It makes us one.

This is what it means to be human. Here, on this beautiful Earth, there is no other. Only us. Not us and ‘them’. Just us.

PS: International film awards: Eight.

‘1000 days’ is made by Me and Thee films for educational purposes. Hence it is not yet freely available on social media. It was screened in the ‘Lived experience’ section at Middlesbrough, for the Hartlepool and Stockton Safeguarding children’s Partnership and South Tees Safeguarding Children’s Partnership Conference on the 12th of July. It made a profound impact on roughly 350 attendees, motivating them to make individual and collective change so as to protect young lives and their happiness. Will keep you posted on the opportunities to watch it. Thank you for your love and support. Please do share any constructive ideas/ thoughts you may have for the film in the comments section.

What do I do with this thing?

Posted by kidsaregifts20

It churns inside me all the time. This thing does not settle. It does not sit still. It burns my tummy, wets my thirsty eyes, parches my tongue and pokes its elbow into the longing in my heart. It doesn’t rest and doesn’t allow me to rest. It kisses my forehead, only to kill me with its kindness. It stays with me, no matter where I go – to the park, to work, on a bike-ride, at my desk, in the kitchen. It seeps into my words. Into the movements of my hands. Into the mirror. Into the songs, I choose. Into tea and toast. There is no getting away from it. It pervades my silences and my sleep.

I wish it had never appeared but it has. It wish it wasn’t mine but it is. The problem is, it won’t leave me alone. Not for the briefest of moments. In a Stockholm Syndrome way, I hold on to it and defend it. How I wish it wouldn’t tear me up so mercilessly.

What do I do with this thing?

Once I heard a Therapeutic Writing Coach say: Name it. Claim it. Tame it. Re-frame it. Proclaim it.

‘Re-frame it’ stayed with me. It does not mean I tell myself false pacifying stories but encourages me to see it for what it is, beyond the drama. Grief, as love that has no place to go. Longing, as the other side of the coin of love.

If I don’t transform it, I will keep transmitting it and I don’t want to do that.

(Resource: Therapist and Writing for Well-being Coach

Nigel Gibbons : http://www.nigelgibbons.co.uk/About-Me.htm)