Guest post: Things that are not the same as losing a child

[MumsnetGuestPosts]

I am not a writer. I am not a journalist. I don't even have a blog.

I don't have a platform. I don't have a fan-base of loyal followers ready to protect me from the trolls, real or imagined.

The only place I have written since I gave up my Open University degree is on various internet forums. All parenting; some more specialist than others.

I am that scary thing, that alien thing: I am a bereaved parent. And often it's just easier to use the internet to write about the loss of my beloved child than it is to speak out in the Real World. There are rules there. Rules about how I can behave.

On the internet, though, I get to say 'beloved child'. I can even get away with 'angel' or 'precious daughter' if I want. I can be sad. I can be emotional. I can reminisce and use mawkish language. These things are all allowed, even expected.

But one thing I can't do: I can't complain if someone compares their loss, their sadness, to mine. If I do that, I am no longer a figure to be pitied; I become a troll. A vicious, bitter troll, spitting out bile.

Please don't think I am the sort of person who doesn't care about the troubles of others. I do. I really do. I will listen and commiserate, and I will genuinely give a toss if someone is struggling with one of life's many challenges. But surely I get to draw the line when someone makes a comparison so insulting, so inappropriate, that it makes me think "oh no they didn't...". They did and they do - frequently. When that happens I don't need to be a troll, and no bile needs to be spat or any other body fluids spilled. I just need to raise my head above the parapet and say "No. That is not ok.".

Every September I sit on my hands as the Facebook statuses proclaim the grief of mums seeing their children off to university. "It's like they've died!" they say, and below this anguished cry a hundred comments agree and sympathise. "I am sat here in tears. My baby has gone to big school today. It's like a bereavement. I don't know what to do with myself" - followed by several of those particularly annoying emoticons with squirting eyes. "Oh hun I know! Xoxoxox." "Stay strong babe, sending hugs x."

These people are feeling something, but they sure as hell are not feeling the grief of a bereaved parent. Nor is the journalist who is mourning the loss of her children's early years. Because the children of those Facebook mums and the children of that journalist are NOT dead. And if your child is not dead you do not know what it is like to grieve for them.

You are allowed to be sad when your children grow up. You can spend time in quiet reflection. You can go up to their bedroom and feel wistful for days past. But do you really think you are allowed to compare your carefully crafted wistfulness to the pain of the mother or father who will never see their child again? You, who will be driving up at the end of term to pick up your son, or popping out at 3.15pm to meet your daughter at the school gates?

My daughter is not at university or sitting in a classroom. She is a small mound of ash in a pretty pink urn sitting in an alcove in my dining room. An alcove specially built by startled builders who asked me, "do you want to do something with this space, love?" when they were finishing off our kitchen extension. Imagine their surprise when I said "yes!" and rushed off to fetch my daughter's remains, so they could measure her up a second time for a snug wooden box. Because she is actually dead. The sort of dead that means that she is gone forever. Her little life came to an end on 27 April 2006. She was 14 years old.

I know what it's like to look at baby photos and feel that pang. How we miss their chubby cheeks and toddler tantrums; their funny little ways and mispronounced words. The difference for me, and for other bereaved parents, is that we don't have any new memories to add to the old. Those Facebook mums and that journalist will hopefully be able to fill their albums, memory cards or iClouds with hundreds of photos of their children. They can share the blurry, printed snaps at family gatherings and even get to laugh with their grandchildren about how silly daddy was when he was little.

I have some lovely memories of my beautiful girl, but even 10 years later those memories are obscured by a wall of horrific flashbacks. I can't seem to get through them, back to a time when my life was ridiculously perfect. So perfect that I might well have been stupid and smug enough to say something like "it's just like losing a child!".

Instead of a head full of pictures of that beautiful, lithe girl with masses of the thickest hair and the biggest blue eyes you've ever seen, I am trying to keep at bay the horrors of her last months; the memory of waiting till she had died so I could hold her one last time without causing her pain.

I am proud of her dignity and bravery, and awed by the extraordinary way she faced her own death.

I just wish she were still here. I wish that I was not a member of that troublesome, quibbling group who dares to say "No! That is not ok". The club that no one wants to belong to, but strangely so many people want to borrow from.

No. That is not ok.

[Diggum]

I haven't the words, but thank you so much for sharing this with us MrsDeVere.

My heart goes out to you and all those who have suffered such a devastating loss .

[derxa]

You know I'm still angry on your behalf, MrsDV and all the other bereaved parents. Liz Fraser should learn the meaning of 'Count your blessings'. She has so much to be grateful for in life yet chooses to denigrate life with her 3 beautiful children. She's like that bloody Katie Hopkins woman who runs down her own children for financial gain.

[ghostyslovesheep]

I really think The Guardian should publish this x

As I said it is NOT OKAY and your feelings should be acknowledged not dismissed so quickly and snottily as Liz Fraser did - bleating all over twitter about being 'bullied' by bereaved parents

Billie is beautiful x thank you for your post

[RussianDolls]

It's not ok.

[RueDeWakening]

It's not ok.

I look at my surviving triplet and feel grief.

Not because he's growing up, starting school, changing and developing independence, but because there should be two more identical "him" alongside, sharing all those experiences.

[sleeponeday]

It's not okay.

Everyone fucks up and is a thoughtless idiot occasionally, what is important is how you deal with it. We both felt better for a genuinely sincere apology - why she didn't is beyond me.

This. I read her article as someone who hasn't lost a child, and her thoughtlessness didn't strike me, because I, too, have the luxury of being unaffected by it. Once it was pointed out to me, I flinched.

We all speak thoughtlessly, and sometimes employ hyperbole for dramatic effect. But losing a child is openly and universally acknowledged as one of the very worst that a human being can endure, and once her attention was drawn to how much her words would hurt, did hurt... I can't comprehend why she didn't offer a simple apology, and ask the site to allow her to amend them.

I've been on MN a long time now, and have been aware of your posts most of it. You are not easily offended, or easily angered, or easily hurt. You're generally a very resilient, calm, kind sort of poster. To dismiss the pain you and other bereaved parents have been caused by this sort of language use - well, it says things that are not pleasant about the character of those choosing to respond that way. It says that their ego matters far more to them than other people's deepest feelings, and most desperate hurts.

I am, once again, so sorry for your loss. So sorry your girl is not sharing all she was, and could be, with us.

[Welshmaman]

It's not ok
But some people just don't have a clue - like all the people who insinuated that luckily we were young enough to have more children following our daughter's death - like we lost one but we could just have another one to take her place!

[derxa]

oh Welshmaman That's awful.

[KittyandTeal]

Welshman we got that too. 'Maybe this one just wasn't mean to be, you're young enough to have another'. I did say 'actually I kind of wanted this one thanks!'

[Trooperslane]

Lost for words.

I have had many miscarriages.

I had a very late one this year from a surprise pregnancy.

It was beyond anything I'd ever experienced, delivering a dead child.

Way more different than my Ddad dropping dead (though I didn't get over the shock for at least 5 years£ or watching my DM disappear in front of me, dying of lewey body dementia.

I love my lost babies so much. My 2 year old dd is an amazing joy hour by hour.

None of this is a competition, MDV but aren't they a pack of total fucking idiots?

You know what? Aren't they lucky they can be so over dramatic about a "bereavement"?

I wouldn't wish any of this on my worst enemy, but I'm shocked daily over how insensitive people are.

Big hugs MDV. I always think about my A when you mention Billie X

[PacificDogwod]

MrsDV, of course it is ok to say that and I agree with your sentiment.

I have had multiple early MCs, have 4 living DCs and would never in a million years describe myself as a 'bereaved parent' - again, that's just me. I can't look at one of mine and imagine the pain of losing him, so much as grief is not a competition and we all have our own crosses to bear in the best way we can, I sincerely hope that I will never have to actually walk in any bereaved parents' shoes. V subjective and personal, of course, but that is how I feel about it.
And I hope this makes any kind of sense as I seem to have tied myself a bit into knots.

And yes, why on earth did LF not apologise? "I am so sorry, I had not thought this through, please accept my apologies for my thoughtless words". V poor.

[expatinscotland]

'But some people just don't have a clue - like all the people who insinuated that luckily we were young enough to have more children following our daughter's death - like we lost one but we could just have another one to take her place!'

This. Or, if you have other surviving children, use them to try to guilt you into shutting up. 'You can't be like this. You have to stay strong for your other children.' What do you think I am doing, but getting up in the morning and functioning? You have no idea. That's fine, actually. I wouldn't want anyone to have a clue just how horrible this is. But it's not okay to try to tell me how to feel.

I wanted to die to be with her. I wanted to end my life. Sometimes, the thought still crosses my head, although I know, for now, I will not act on it. And that's all I have: now. I know others who have, following the deaths of their children.

How dare someone use my two children, her siblings, to try to make me feel bad about showing my grief for my 9-year-old daughter when she died after the horrendous protocol that is treatment for acute myeloid leukaemia.

It hurts. I don't want my surviving two children to get the idea that my love for them is conditional upon being alive; that when people die, just pretend they didn't exist, fuck it, just bury them and all you feel about them. They lost her, too. She was a much-loved sister who was very close to them.

Something Mrs DeVere said when I was quite early on really struck me. About the phrase, 'Move on.' 'Where do you move to?' she said, 'Tell me where? I want to go there, no one wants to be here.'

You don't 'move on' when you are a bereaved parent. If you are fortunate, you live on. And it is a work in progress.

It's not okay. I will never be okay again, in the sense of the word.

That is my fate, as death was Aillidh's. I'm still me, just different.

It's a club no one wants to join, but when you do, it's people like MrsDeVere who can truly make the difference between life and and death by sharing so much of themselves and their children.

And that is why, for me, this post is so powerful, so valuable and so immensely strong.

Thank you, friend.

[PacificDogwod]

expat, no words, but know you and yours are often in my thoughts

[expatinscotland]

Thank you, Pacific for being there when she was so sick in PICU before she died. I will never forget that. It meant so very much. And all those who were there. All those who were there. My daughter's funeral was like an MN meetup.

MrsDeVere speaks for us, and so very well.

[twirlypoo]

Expat

I feel totally inadequate on this thread, there just isn't the words. You are all in my thoughts x

[Wombatinabathhat]

Very moving expat
for all bereaved parents.

[ghostyslovesheep]

Expat xxx

[SuckingEggs]

Oh, Expat

Fucking, fucking cancer.

And on top of this, ignorance, insults and people's egos to deal with... Crazy world.

[SisterConcepta]

Its not ok.
It's incredibly crass to compare your child growing up with what is every parents worst nightmare.
You write beautifully.

[m0therofdragons]

Reading your post I am having a moment of clarity. I've always been confused by the sadness people feel about their dc growing up as I've never felt it. Maybe one day I will but I've enjoyed each stage and loved seeing them grow. I know I get this from my parents. Never did they express sadness only delight as I grew and changed. I knew I got it from them and just assumed it was how they were and I've loved them for it. But suddenly I get it. Of course they were delighted to see my brother and I grow. It was a privilege they never got with my twin sister. Their loss then was nothing like the feeling they felt as I went to uni. I'm stunned people would even say that. You are completely right.

[MsJuniper]

I have been thinking about this all week and of all the bereaved mums who share their experiences and their children on MN and make the world a better place for doing so.

MN at its best is a compassionate place to be and that's because it has to be - no one can deny the lived experiences of women who have been through every hardship imaginable, who reach out online for support with relationships, financial worries, abuse and real, actual bereavement.

I like others remember the first time I saw a post by Mrs DeVere and added my tears to Billie's memory. Similarly the jolt of seeing expat mention A and many other posters sharing their children's stories. It awoke in me an awareness of what some women carry on a daily basis - nothing like a true understanding of what that must be like but hopefully at least enough to stop me using phrases thoughtlessly, or apologising if I do.

Even while writing this I am hesitant about using words like "experiences" and "stories" as I don't want to diminish or euphemise their children's deaths.

I am astonished that LF is still posting on Twitter about her "week of online hell" - a phrase which emphasises her lack of awareness of what life must be like for those kind, wonderful, sad women who have dared to speak out about her crass comparisons. Her article was truly shocking but not as much as what has come after.

Mrs DeVere thank you for posting this and for your subsequent posts. I have lost two pregnancies in the last year and I know that despite stretching my heart with sadness to what felt like its limit, they are a pinprick to how I would feel if I lost DS. You are extraordinarily generous and it is not ok.

[BindiBarbarella]

So beautifully written Mrs D. It is never OK.

My Mum's Sister died after a short battle with Leukaemia at 3 years old. I always thought it sad when my Gran spoke of her but didn't really think about it until I had my own daughter. I cannot imagine the pain of losing a child and do not understand how she, you and all other bereaved parents get through it.

Thank you for taking the time to write this post. I'll be thinking of you and your beautiful girl.

[ReadyPlayerOne]

MrsDeVere
Beautifully put.