One of the many things that hit a parent who has lost a child is the perennial recurrence of significant dates. I have mentioned this before in previous articles and I’ve discussed the torment and pain that these can bring but these have always been in reference to dates that correspond directly with the child who has gone. Their anniversary, their birthday, the Christmas or Halloween that THEY’RE missing out on etc.. But this week is the 1st birthday of my beautiful little Dean and the emotions surrounding this significant milestone have brought into focus something very important that has only now resonated with me.

After you lose a child your world completely falls apart. Everything in it is different thereafter. For the parent who loses a child, but who also has other children to think of, there is a difference in how they have to cope. In my own experience, I lost my son Craig, when he was the only child I had. He was everything to me. I’ve heard people say, trying to console me in some way no doubt, that ‘your loss is so much more difficult because you’ve no other kids to keep you busy.’ These words were always meant as a way of acknowledging the pain that my partner and I were going through I suppose but one really cannot, nor should not, compare such tragedies. It is wholly untrue for starters. I used to think the opposite in fact, when I’d hear such comments. If anything, those parents with other children were expected to have strength and ‘be there’ for their kids too. I don’t know if I could have had such strength. So the degree of pain is the same, just the path of coping which is different.
When Dean was born into my life I could feel for the first time what those other parents feel – the struggle between new joy and eternal loss. And ever since Dean came into my life I swore I would never let his life be diminished by the sorrow I’ll carry with me always.

But what hit me this week – celebrating my Dean’s 1st birthday – was the profound pulling of those emotions: Joy for Dean and sadness for Craig. Now, I’ve experienced this a lot it has to be said, but the difference this week was the very strong sense of guilt that followed. This was my little boy’s 1st Birthday and it should be just completely joyous and all about him after all. But, in a moment of weakness, I found myself playing with Dean and singing happy birthday to him when all of a sudden my eyes began to fill with tears. Dean was smiling up at me and he was so happy – it was his birthday – and yet here I was crying for his older brother who was not here to share it. I hid my eyes from him, angry with myself for not giving him the undiluted happiness and attention that was his right. In that moment I failed. I cried for Craig and then I cried for Dean – for how his father couldn’t give all of himself, to him, on such a special occasion.

But this is something I will always have to live with. This week I realised how strong it WILL always be. It’s all part of the post apocalyptic life that we grieving parents must endure . . .