The Wednesday Group.

Dear Saagar,

Ten is a strange one. Who knew an innocent, round, even number like this could inflict such pain on one. The last note I had from you was ten years ago. It turned each moment of each day into an unwanted debt, heavily owed to God-knows-who. Potential decades stretched out before me like a horizon-less dark desert. I wished they would disappear. Time became the enemy, unfolding in fits and starts in wiggly circular patterns, etching lines of blood and tears on the surface of mighty oceans.

Now, this gone decade demands recognition. It wants to be acknowledged in some way, however small. It deserves a pat on the back for braving through such turmoil and finally becoming a friend.

Hugo, Azin, Phoebe and some other friends, yours and ours came over for a Sunday lunch in early August and brought their friends along. Many of them, musicians. Remember Corinne Bailey Rae? You bought me her CD, Girl put your records on one Christmas? Remember how I sang along to it in the kitchen while cooking? On Sunday, we sang that song together. The Dock of the Bay and Ain’t no sunshine and Stand by me too.

We cut a chocolate cake for everyone who turned thirty this year. We were together for five glorious hours. Tens of sun-flowers smiled in vases dotted around the room and the sun shone on us as we talked and laughed and sang, just like the old times.

You won’t believe this but I resigned from my job recently. I know. I was so proud of it. I got so much from it. It meant so much to me but I feel liberated. Now someone else can do that lovely job while I work with my unique gift. In a world increasingly obsessed with labels, I am happy to lighten myself and shed a few.

Last weekend, Si and I hosted a retreat for eleven bereaved parents. It was The Wednesday Group of the Circle of Remembrance that had started meeting online in May 2022. For more than two years we met for an hour and a half online every fortnight, sharing the most personal of things. This was the first occasion for us to meet in person as a group. It was divine.

One brown butterfly alighted on the left side of Si’s chest and rested on his white shirt peacefully for quite a while as we all talked and laughed and sipped our teas and coffees.

After returning home, one mum wrote to say,

“…this weekend has reminded me of who I am and what I am capable of as I continue to navigate this life I never expected or wanted to have.”

What could be better?

I am blessed. Thank you for being my son.

Your essence remains here, with us.

Love you my darling.

Mamma. xxx

(Please visit http://www.core-community.com and contact us to join our loving and understanding community or recommend it to anyone who might find peer support after child loss helpful.)

(A handmade patchwork wall-piece for the home of CORe)

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.

Invitation to the Circle of Remembrance

Posted by kidsaregifts20

Towards the end of 2020, a series of phone calls with mums and dads from the USA, Australia and the UK resulted in the formation of an on-line peer support group that has met every other Saturday evening for an hour and a half. The first meeting was held in the middle of January 2021. We’ve recently had our 32^nd meeting. The group provides a warm space for sharing and offers non-judgemental listening and understanding. It provides a fertile ground for post-traumatic healing and growth. We call it CORe: Circle of Remembrance.

The loss of a child is different from other losses. The purpose of CORe is to honour our children, to create an opportunity for sharing our inner and outer experiences and to seek tools and mutual understanding for establishing a firmer ground of compassion, from which to live our new lives.

Over time, I have come to appreciate my need for a tribe to belong to. Other people who are also living through the loss of their child validate our experiences, witness our pain and help us feel less alone.

After many years of trying to make sense of something so treacherous, I now know that it is impossible to make any sense of it. However, I also know that it’s possible to create a new path for ourselves. A path of learning and peace.

It has been an honour for Si and me to facilitate the CORe group of roughly 20 friends and witness their journeys. The rich, life-sustaining conversations and friendships within the group are a delight to be a part of.

It therefore gives me great joy to invite bereaved parents to a new group that will meet on alternate Wednesdays from 7.00 – 8.30 pm (UK time). Please visit the website of CORe (link below) for more details and testimonials and sign up if you would like to join. In our experience with the Saturday group, the upper limit to attendees is 25. Once we have about 15 members, we’ll get started. The tentative start date is 4^th May 2022.

https://www.core-community.com/