I suppose one of the main things that go out of your life after losing a child is focus. I mean any sense of clarity or purpose seems, and is, impossible. So how do you get it back? Indeed, can you get it back?

In my own experience, after losing Craig, I was an absolute wreck. On the outside I appeared relatively normal to others I suppose but the truth, as always, lies within. Inside my every faculty of reasoned thought was turned to heavy putrid mulch. There was nothing light and airy about the thinking that governed my day. I wandered lost and alone in a new world – a world which no longer held any meaning for me. From morning to night my cumbersome thoughts bubbled and spat like some hot and thick viscous mud pool. Everyday thoughts were perfunctory and emerged only as a reaction to the practicalities of life. It truly is a zombie-like state. The only real thoughts – real emotions – were those of the most devastating pain and grief. These took up almost all of my resources.

Within about six months of Craig passing I decided (amazingly now that I look back) to do some Diploma courses as part of my plan to work from home as a holistic practitioner. I found these very hard to do. Not the course itself, just the time commitment involved. My mind was not ready, not free enough, to jump back into ‘normal’ life. It was a difficult experience but I got through it.

Then I began working from home doing the holistic work that I planned and also some freelance editing for Publishers. But none of these endeavours every really took off. Not in any self-sustaining way anyway. There are all sorts of reasons why of course, not least the recession that hit just as I started out. But I believe, in truth, that it had something to do with lack of focus.

All the training, preparation and groundwork that I put in was done with a laboured heart. I was never truly passionate about any of it. Yes I seemed to tick all the boxes in terms of what was required to make these efforts successful but the truth was I wasn’t focussed enough. I ambled along through it all, like the drunk man who always finds his way home. I didn’t stride purposefully and with confidence. I didn’t invest all of me into it. In truth, I invested very little of ME in fact. I still struggled, and continue to struggle, with finding a true meaning for my life.

But this year I decided to write a book about my son’s life and his, and our, journey together. When I began it I thought I’d never do it. It was immeasurably more difficult a prospect than anything else I’d done in my life and it seemed an impossible ask. But the one thing I had, that I never had in all the other projects, was true focus. I had a sense of brilliant purpose and an aching desire to see it through. I invested all of me into it and remained driven every day to sit at the laptop and move it along. I finished that book and it’s with an agent now. And I truly believe it will be published.

There is an incredible lesson I learned in the six months writing that book: You’re heart has to be in something for it to come to anything. When you are passionate about something the rest comes easily enough: focus, determination etc.. When you work at something that you love, there’s a deep satisfaction that carries you along. Resistance is seldom met. All things flow more easily.

After finishing that book I have struggled again with the lack of focus and purpose in my life. I’m lost and confused as to where to go with my life, my career. I’ve always wanted to be an author and when I think of writing a children’s book it lights a fire in my belly – It’s the only thing that does now. But that’s an impossible long shot and dreaming doesn’t pay the bills.

What do I focus on now?