Family

Saving Mr Banks

helpThe darkness and light of the never-ending questions.

Parenting is a marathon effort. Some days you’re running alongside your children and others leave you standing on the sidelines. Watching those stages from baby to toddler, child to tween and those awkward spaces where your teen suddenly emerges into adulthood and then casually slips back means you are constantly running to catch up with their changing needs. You walk that fine line between encouraging them to grow and then wanting to shield them from the tough stuff.

During the long school holidays I took my older girls – 8, 12 and 14 to see Saving Mr. Banks. A PG rated movie whose previews suggested a jolly old story behind a movie that’s on high rotation in most houses, and the houses of many parents as they grew up – Mary Poppins.

Once the popcorn had been purchased and the last pit stop to the toilet taken we settled down in the dark waiting for the familiar show tunes to pipe from the speakers. As the movie stretched on the darkness and light that sits behind that classic PL Travers novel – who quite proudly grew up in Australia – started to unravel and with it I began to squirm in my seat.

Saving Mr. Banks was inexplicably sad – telling the story of an enquiring little girl managing the harshness of rural Australia and the love for a Dad who just quite couldn’t get there some days. It explored the impact of alcohol use on a family, physical illness, mental health, death and what happens for those on the sidelines when the pressure of caring for three small children with an absent dad pushes people to their limits. My eight year old spent a lot of time whispering across asking what was happening, why the mum was crying so much and why the Dad was behaving like he did. I answered as best I could in hushed tones and asked her to wait until afterwards where we could chat in peace.

Raising children involves a lot of stimulating conversations . They are discussions that we plan for, that we try to up skill ourselves about in order to show them that the way we cope with life can transform our ability to get right back up when we fall down. They help to teach our children that to be human is to live with both the ups and downs, all at the same time.

Families often ask about the right way to answer the questions that sit on the periphery of our experiences. In working with families and in raising my own it can be helpful to ponder the following ideas:

  • Don’t apply additional layers to their questions – answer what they are asking. If they ask for more, answer more.
  • Link situations back to them as often as possible. Children see the world from their own lens; if you make it relatable rather than abstract they are more likely to grasp what you are discussing.
  • Be age appropriate, its OK to provide one layer of response and then provide further information as they grow and mature.
  • Choose your timing. The great conversations can never be planned but finding the right space for you – in the car, over the dinner table – can help you communicate what is required
  • It’s normal to worry that you haven’t answered a question the ‘right’ way. Remember that you know your child best – answer based on where they are at, not what others suggest.
  • Get support – ask your friends with children similar ages about how they answer the tough questions, check in with your Counsellor (if you have one) or go to some of the online forums and get some ideas.
  • Engaging your children in conversations about those spaces around stories of mental health, drug and alcohol use, premature death or trauma allows them to slowly paint a realistic picture of the world. Increasing their awareness at a slow pace can help them to build on their empathy for those within their family and in the wider community.

 

As our children grow older and life transitions from G to more PG rated ideas the inevitable questions about how the world functions come along for the ride. Taking a breath, finding a way to respond to their inquisitive minds can teach you about the marathon journey you are all on together.

For more information about asking and answering questions visit here (http://raisingchildren.net.au/articles/ask_real_questions_pbs.html)

How do you answer the tough ones?

What I know about {remembering}

To remember:

to recall to the mind by an act or effort of memory; to think of again.

This time last year I wrote a post that I argued over in my head for a long time. I sent it to a mate and asked her point of view. I worried that in writing a post about the bad it would negate the good. To remember is to relive and to relive is re traumatising.

There is power in remembering. It allows you to see where you have been as a way of predicting where you will go. To watch the hands of time and make sure they keep moving. In the chapters I submitted to my supervisor this week I wrote a section on the way in which counsellors sit with people, remember with them – as a way of finding new ways to cope in the future. We look to the past to see the ways that we craft little coping mechanisms to see if they might fit with what is happening now. We are all experts on our own experience.

Between research, parenting, relationships and writing I’m forced to remember over and over. Remember the snippets of joy families have shared with me when they have worked out new ways to survive catastrophic losses, remember the smiles of the day I birthed my babies, remember that to be truly in a relationship I have to remember my potential to fall back on old ways of doing things. I stop myself and start again. I remember to write in a way that is true and honest but doesn’t find me in the foetal position in the corner of the room.

Strangely enough every time I type corner it comes out as coroner. My work in the death field has ruined my touch typing skills.

In 2007 I got to spend a week at the Dulwich Centre in Adelaide. The lovely Micheal White spoke for 5 days about narrative therapy – about helping people reauthor their own lives. I think that I learnt a lot about the skills I might need in the counselling space but more importantly it gave me the power to reauthor my own life. Michael used to talk about ‘saying hello again’, about the bonds we could establish between people that are here and the people that are lost. A continuing bond that can occur even after a loss has happened.

I learnt that week to say hello again to myself. To remember that in all the connecting we do, we have to reconnect with ourselves.

In November, we remember.

What do you know about remembering?

Link up an old or new post below and then pop around and read the other posts x


Wear it red

Today is Day for Daniel.

Its an important day that asks people to reflect on the need for child safety but I guess even more than that, safety for all of us. Big and small. To go about our lives, to not live in fear of what is around the corner and to see the unknown with possibility rather than with concern.

Bruce and Denise are people that I call friends, friends in the sense that Ive helped them out and in return they have helped me appreciate what I have around me. Possessions and fancy things dont rate heavily in my world. My kids, my husband, my friends and my brain are what I hold close. And coffee. There is always coffee.

They also started me on my writing path – my first piece about them was my first published piece and from their Ive had the chance to write about people like Loren and Faye and Sarah and Kate. They all live with loss and sadness but they all seek to find new meanings and a laugh or two.

Ill be away from here for a week finishing off a big hunk of writing. Next time Ill be back Ill be hosting a discussion on what people know about remembering. If you have a blog or just thoughts Id encourage you to leave a link or a comment about what remembering means to you.

It reminds me of the last bit I did when I remembered and I thought how much good comes from looking back and then looking forward.

Have a lovely week and see you back here next Friday.

Sarah x

  • Published October 26, 2012
  • Author
  • Category Loss

Frankie says…Choose Life (a guest post)

Lisa from Giving Back Girl responded to my plea that I was lost for words. Writing for uni and freelancing with tight deadlines can do that to a person. Im word spent.

Here she is talking about her space in between. I love her writing and I love that we have carved a friendship out of a chance meeting and a few online shenanigans. Follow her blog here or her twitter feed here,  or just send a big fat Like out to the universe if social media isn’t your thing.

And as Molly Meldrum would say…do yourself a favour (and have a read and share)

 

My mum died when I was 28, she was 55.  Hers was an unhappy life, and even though I like to think that she adored my sister and I, and would have walked over hot coals for us, I think she may have even been a little disappointed in us.  And let me just get the record straight, I loved my mum and would have walked over coals for her without flinching.  But this isn’t about that.  Or maybe it is.

I have a crazy-detailed memory.  My life memory is like a whole series of mini movies that I can replay at will, to see what I was wearing or eating or doing.  But there is a period of my life where my memory movies are dark, I don’t replay them often, perhaps when I’m with my sister and too many pinot gris’s have been consumed and we feel we need to talk about our “stuff”.  Because I saw things that frankly a child should never, ever have to see.  And I lived my life in a way that no child should have to live.  There was nothing sinister, just negative and destructive, snipping away at any chance I had of a normal childhood.

There was a period when my mum was in a hospital (I’ll pause while you fill in the blank about the kind of hospital it was) when my powers of memory decided that “no, this is not something we’re going to save”, and my memory thankfully deserted me.  I have no memory of that time, just an occasional bleep.  The power of my consciousness to protect me still intrigues me.

But what amazes me most is my adult reaction to my life, when I think back on it.  You see, I could have chosen to be a victim, to drape myself in a cloak of self pity, to wallow in my memories.  I could have let my childhood experiences shape my future, to manipulate my relationships.  I could have dragged it around all my adult experiences like an unwanted suitcase that you can’t get rid of.  I could have worn a name badge with a “Hi I’m Lisa and I’m damaged”.

But I didn’t.

I chose to not let my childhood experiences have any impact or influence on my life, the life that I’m in control of.   They are part of me and always will be, but I have come out of this as a survivor, someone who has chosen a “happy life” and chosen not to be a victim.

I am not a victim, I am in control of what I choose to do with my childhood experiences.

And I choose to remember the good memories.

I choose to remember how clever mum was, of the shape of her fingernails, of how she loved when I got promoted in a job, of loved the weather, and watching big seas. Now I always pick up shells from the beach, because she taught me to do that.  I love that I share “Grandma” memories with my three young boys even though they never met each other, so I have given her a personality, quirky and a little kooky, which she was, and which my boys love.  I love that my eldest looks like me, and that I look like my mum, and that somehow we’re keeping that part of our gene pool going.  I know that my Mum would have been so proud of me for creating my beautiful boys, and for taking a gamble on a career path that she would have loved to have done herself.

My space in between is a little special, because even though I could choose to take on a role as a “victim”, I unconsciously wanted no part of that.  Maybe I was a little exhausted from it all, and craved normality and happiness, or maybe I knew how destructive that could be on all the things I wanted in my life.  And I think this choice has done something a little magical to my relationship with my mum.  I miss her dreadfully.  I love her dearly.  And I have regrets that we didn’t have a second chance at life together.

 

——————————-

Saying no, to being a victim is a powerful thing. Having worked in the ‘victims’ field for eons Ive seen how the move away from promoting resilience, how buying in to labels, letting the world and all its darkness take you away from seeing the light is something that is not helpful.

I also like that through my blog I get to see the little bits of peoples lives.

What did you think of Lisa’s space in between…whats yours?

My brother David

A few years back Robyn and I went to watch a performance. A story I had written about her in 2005 had been turned into an interpretive dance piece. We sat still in the audience watching it play out ahead of us. In walking back out to the brightly lit foyer afterwards we stepped to the side and had a giggle…meeting people who have had the worst happen to them doesn’t mean that there isnt a space for a big laugh now and again. Robyn has shared her story of David with you all.

Have a read.

Robyn – its National Missing Persons Week. How many years has David been missing, what were the circumstances around his disappearance?

David went missing in Iran in November 1993.  He was on an extended trip travelling through Europe and had decided to travel home overland through Turkey and Iran and on to India before heading back to Australia.  He was an architect and interested to visit the various monuments in these countries.  He had been staying in Tehran with a family he had met whilst travelling overland from Turkey.  He was last seen leaving their house very early one morning on November 11, in a taxi headed for Tehran airport.  He was due to fly to Shiraz to visit the ruins of Persepolis, and then meet up with the family in a few days time. He never made his rendezvous.  It was a month later before we (David’s family in Australia) learned that something was terribly wrong.  For several weeks we had been surprised not to hear from David – he had been in regular contact with family and friends.  We all just hoped that it would be difficult for him to contact home due to where he was travelling.  This was pre mobile phones and emails, so communication was far less frequent.  When he failed to call before his flight home, we suspected that something was wrong but still had no proof and hoped for the best.  My parents and I headed out to the airport to meet David’s flight on the evening of December 8, 1993, only to watch all the passengers disembark without David.  This was the defining moment when we knew that something was terribly wrong. It was another month before we traced David’s last movements to the family in Iran (tracked back from an address on a box containing a kilim that he had bought in Iran and shipped home).  Despite family travelling to Iran and extensive investigations involving AFP and DFAT, we have had no further news of his whereabouts in over 18 years.

How do you acknowledge the anniversary as it comes around?

There are so many anniversaries that are significant.  The last day we saw him, the day he was due home, birthdays, Christmas.  The day he went missing, November 11, was also my parents wedding anniversary.  It is also marked by Remembrance Day, which is now particularly poignant for me.  When people pause for a minute silence on that day, I think of David.

Your parents passed away without finding David – did they ever come to terms with being able to sit with ‘not knowing?’

Mum and Dad both died longing for news of what had happened to David.  I don’t think they ever came to terms with not knowing and I believe that they both died with broken hearts.  It makes me so sad that the final years of their life had to be so hard.  I have to make a conscious effort to remind myself that they were not always sad and that a large part of their lives had been happy.  It’s easy to remember the worst times when they are the freshest memories. I keep a wedding photo of theirs in a frame at home.  It’s a close up of just the two of them. They are young and look so happy.  When Mum died I felt like it had been so long since I could remember her being happy in any way. That’s when I got this photo out and framed it. I keep it there to remind me that there were good times.

How do you handle the question – have you got any siblings?

It really depends on the situation. It still conjures up very raw emotions for me, even after all this time. I never say that I am an only child, but how much information I share about David’s circumstances depends a lot on who I am with.  Most people don’t cope well when you tell them that your brother is missing. It’s not a situation people are familiar with and as such, don’t know how to respond. The result can some be insensitive comments – a situation I try and avoid.  Sometimes I will say that I had a brother but he died.  If I feel comfortable, I will share my story.

Whats does missing persons week mean to you?

A moment to pause and reflect.  It’s the first week in August which is also my Mum’s birthday – so again anniversaries seem inextricably tied together with “missing”.

Missing seems to permeate everything.  It’s a huge part of who I am.

 

For more information about National Missing Persons Week or about the only support service in Australia that responds to families click here.

 

The nest egg.

I watched the family of this poor boy try to find words to convey their trauma and sadness on TV this morning. I watched the camera pan to his siblings sitting to the left of their bewildered parents and I wondered where would they go from here. Not in the years to come but today. Where would you turn if you lost one of your lights? The news reports explained that Thomas was out on his first night to popular area of Sydney, the CCTV footage showed him walking hand in hand with his girlfriend and then he steps out of camera. The power of knowing what happens next makes you want to press pause and rewind over and over again almost trying to keep him in view, keep him safe.

I can clearly remember sitting with a family a few years back in counselling. I had already been working for a few years with people living with life altering traumas – no two stories were the same, they all showed different traits of resilience, of strength. The family and I were talking about the grief of losing a child – replaying over and over the events that led to the sadness, the rawness of approaching anniversaries and that impending doom that nothing would ever be the same ever again. It was an uncomfortable place for me to be sitting too – I was heavily pregnant with my first child and trying my hardest to be supportive and engaging while my own baby squirmed inside of me. I remember as we catalogued the pain they were experiencing – both physical and emotional – that it was like a nest egg. Parenting is like having a nest egg – a giant fund that you contribute to for years and years only for to find yourself one day looking in and realising that it had all vanished in the blink of an eye. That all those years of juggling, of working hard and of hoping for that day that you could sit back and reap the rewards, were stolen from you. I cant imagine walking along one path for so long and then the world throw you a giant detour.

If you take a moment to read the blogs, the magazines, the news sites about parenting you find that the elusive work life balance gets thrown around on a daily basis. We wish away the early years full of sleep deprivation and tantrums, we struggle through the primary school years where it feels like the bell rings almost 5 minutes after school starts  and then we hold our breath as kids reach the years where they dip their toes in the world of independence.

There is no way of holding them back, of keeping them wrapped up at home because like many of us; we went out at night, we found ourselves in precarious situations and many are still here to tell the story. The randomness of it all means that there can be no preparation for it. No amount of counselling or supportive words changes what has happened. So sad.

How do you juggle the need for kids to assert their independence with your fear of what could happen to them?

 

baby faces

I loved this list from the late, great Nora Ephron. I think I have seen ‘When Harry Met Sally’ 72000 times.

It got me thinking what Id put on my list. It got me thinking about the anti-bucket list I developed last year. It also got me thinking about the impact parenting has on me.

Its Red Nose Day today here in Australia. Chrissie Swan wrote a lovely, eloquent piece on what she remembers from being a kid when she first released that people sometimes lose their kids. I was watching a TV show last night and my girl was perched on the side of the lounge. How is it that there can be 3 other seats available but kids have to sit right ON you? The story was about a mum who lost her little boy to SIDS last year. My daughter sobbed for about half an hour after the story – she asked to go in and check on her own brother to make sure he was OK. I kept asking her to talk to me while also thinking why the hell did I let her watch with me – but like Chrissie said I dont know how you hide the world from your kids – do you shield them from it hoping to keep all the yucky stuff out or do you open it all up for them to peer in to. Being asked questions that start with ‘why’ mean that I always stumble for an answer, because after 10 years working in the grief world there will never be an answer for those questions. I talked to her about life and love and we made a list of things that we should be grateful for, the things that will stick out when we’re old and wrinkly, the things that wont even rate…it went something like this.

Wont miss

Waking up early for swimming

Broccoli

Homework (that was me)

Bad Coffee

Bossy people

Miss

Hugs

Merit awards

Friends, best friends

Grandmas

Laughing  until your tummy hurts

Uno (or Unit as my girl calls it)

Snacks

I calmed her down and she opted to sleep in my bed until I popped her into hers later on. I carried those big, lanky limbs out of my room, around the corner to her bed filled with 100 toys and tucked her in. The face still looks like the baby I used to stare out, like most mums I held my breath after both my babies had started sleeping through the night worried as I stepped in the room that something dreadful had happened during the night. I still check on all the kids at random times through the night. Watching. Waiting. Admiring (and secretly relishing the quiet)

You can donate to SIDS and KIDS or to River’s Gift or just raise awareness where you can. Cliched as it as, hold your bubs tight, talk to them openly and wipe away the tears when they learn that it isnt all rainbows. Im not sure if I tell my kids too much, I also know that I cant take away their empathy for other people. I figure its better to have it, than not.

Share this post if you think that coping with loss is about sharing the message.

Whats on your hit and miss list?

 

Riding in cars with…kids.

Image from here

When trauma and loss happen most of us know what to do. We know who to call, where to seek help and what we can (kind of) expect about the ways to cope. I guess we’re the ambulance chasers of our own experience.

But what happens to kids when life and all its catastrophes happen?

Catastrophes in a kids world can be big and small – they’re not proportional to ours. They have different meaning and the lens by which they explore them doesn’t match with the life lessons we’ve endured.

Centuries ago when I started working as child protection caseworker I did a whole lot of training on how to talk to kids, the ways to build rapport with a small person that had never laid eyes on you before. I cant imagine how scary that would be for a small person to be expected to bare their soul to someone – but I do know that being a place of safety for a kid overrides that fear of stepping into their lives for the first time.

Every Friday night my daughter and I drive a small distance to her dance class. We changed classes this year to a spot that was a few minutes walk away but I realised that in doing that I missed the chance to talk. Its funny to watch a 6 year old grappling with her identity, how quickly some kids are able to reflect on the who’s, whats and whys of their existence. In the driving to and fro we created chances for random, but meaningful conversation.

We started back at that place a little further away this term. As each Friday night looms I think of 1000 reasons why Id prefer to be at home with my Ugg boots on but once we’re set, when a small person has been dropped to his cousins and bigger girls are OK to wait for Dad to get home from work I relish in the talk of the journey.

Its been on these trips that Ive been able to explain divorce, explain the difference between Daddy and Dada, the reasons why its Ok to be married to 2 people (but hey not at the same time. This isn’t Dr Phil) and about what makes us happy and sad. Its not all drama, its all the places in between.

It was raining on Friday, the streetlights were bright and they smeared across the windscreen, the singing between her and I to songs that probably arent suited to a 6 year old were belted out. She cleared her throat and said ‘mum, tell me about you as a kid…do you think you were as funny as me?’.

Riding in cars with kids can create the chance to stare out the window and solve the dilemmas of the world.

 

 

 

No other explanations…part two

 

Thanks for popping back this evening to read the second half of this lovely interview. If you didnt read the previous posts click here to have a read.

Like I said in my opening last night one of the main reasons for asking to Emmanuel to chat was for me to learn more about how we, as helpers, look after ourselves. Also a couple of years back I hosted a roundtable for siblings who had someone missing – it was the first time many of them had been given the chance to share their story. Their story away from the glare of their parents, away from other people’s interpretation and without having to worry what their words might mean to others.

These ideas shaped the remainder of my questions.

Here it is….love and light to you all x

 

Working in the trauma field how do you manage looking after you?

To be honest I probably look after myself rather badly. Part of my job is listening to other people’s problems and trying to help them in some way. I always thought if I listened to other people’s problems then I could forget about my own to some extent and not have to worry about what wasn’t working in my own life. The problem with that is that your own problems never really go away and at some point you will need to face your own issues.

Self-care and being kind to yourself is definitely something that you are aware of when you work as a counsellor and it is something that gets discussed in supervision especially. I think it is important to have rostered days off and not to feel guilty about them. When you do it is important to do something nice for yourself and to enjoy it.

The hardest lesson to learn is not to take work home. In the early days of my career I was very bad at that and would think about clients on the bus or at dinner and even before going bed. The more experience you get the easier it becomes to switch off and to detach from work at home.

One important element in all of this is never to talk about work at home or socially. Friends and family have a curious fascination about your job when they know you are a counsellor. Other than the obvious privacy and confidentiality issues, I find it is easier not to talk about work generally when out socially. Having a clear distinction between your life at work and your life outside of work is very important.

Some things I do specifically to take care of myself include going for long walks and learning to meditate. After spending an 8-hour day listening to people talk and then responding in turn, it is very nice to not have to do that when you get home. It is important to me to have that down time when I first get home of not having to engage in any conversation and to spend some time unwinding. I need at least an hour when I get through the front door to unwind and switch off.

The flip side of that is that when you have a particularly bad day or are working on a case that challenges you and pushes your buttons it is important to talk about it in supervision and with your manager so as not to take it home. Having a high level of self-awareness is also very important because you need to know what pushes your buttons and why. If you know the answers to those questions then you usually know what you have to do to address the issue.

Does the wider community understand the losses you have endured – do you feel confident to speak about your experiences?

I often talk about my brother’s death with those closest to me both personally and professionally. When my brother died I got an enormous amount of love and support from work colleagues. All my team came to his funeral and most of them had never met him. The support I got from work colleagues made it easier to talk about.

On the downside I can’t hide from it either. Now that it has been nearly 5 years since he died it isn’t as easy to say to them I am having a bad day because I miss my brother. People look at you funny as if to say, “how much longer is this going to go on,” or “aren’t you over it yet.” I am more selective with what I tell them now. I am open about his birthday and anniversary of his death and Christmas being a hard time, but find that I talk about him less and less at work because I no longer get the support and understanding I did initially.

My brother died on a Thursday and for the longest time Thursday was the worst possible day of the week for me. I could barely function and I could hardly breathe or cope with work but somehow you find a way through it. I would get home as quickly as I could and then I would lock myself in my house and close all the lights and just sit and stare in the darkness and allow myself to feel the grief. I don’t do that anymore but I think for the first 2 years every Thursday was like that. Now I can get through most Thursday’s without feeling this way but if I have a bad Thursday I won’t talk about it because it takes more effort to explain why rather than living through it.

With regards to family and friends it is often hit and miss these days. Many members of my family that were close to him miss him just as much as I do. My brother’s death has had a devastating impact on lots of people. Yet any discussion about him is left to me to generate. They often say to me we don’t want to upset you by mentioning his name and talking about him, but sometimes I wish they would! Not talking about him and my paranoia that they may have forgotten him is infuriating at times and I wish they would communicate more about what they are thinking and feeling.

Most of my friends have been very supportive and have been an excellent outlet for me, but they have also been the ones who have said some of the most hurtful things. I saw a bereavement counsellor for over 2 years after Theo died and I remember talking to a very close friend of mine about the fact that it was coming to an end and how anxious I felt about that. Her response was – “it is about time you stopped seeing the counsellor – now he can finally support someone that needs it!”

What do you think people need to know to understand more about sibling loss?

Bereaved siblings are often called the ‘forgotten mourners.’ All the attention whether rightly or wrongly seems to go to the parents and any other surviving family members that your sibling has (i.e. spouse/ children). As a sibling you are made to feel that your grief is not as important and for some reason you are never able to fully acknowledge the devastation that you feel at your sibling’s death.

Anniversaries and holidays are especially difficult because for some reason most people ask you “how are mum and dad coping?” It amazes me that these people never stop to think that I may not be coping or that I may need someone to talk to at these times. Christmas especially is like that. My brother loved Christmas and would get excited about decorating the house and buying presents for those he loved. We haven’t decorated the house since he died and I find it hard to celebrate at all, but we force ourselves to do so knowing how much he loved it.

Prior to my brother’s death I never would have thought that there was such a thing as competition or a hierarchy of grief, but as a bereaved sibling you are constantly made to feel as if your grief is not as important as what others may be and you are definitely made to feel as if you are at the bottom of the pecking order.

When my brother first died I thought that it would be fairly easy to find some literature and books on sibling grief. Reading has always been an outlet for me and I respond well to structure and guidelines. To my astonishment that was not the case. If I was lucky enough to find a section in a bookshop that had more than one book in that area, inevitably there were no books on sibling grief. There are books on just about every other type of grief but yet again siblings are largely non-existent in the literary world.

Similarly I thought it would be helpful to join a group where I could listen to other bereaved siblings and hear what they had to say and how they deal with their grief. Yet again this proved to be virtually impossible. To the best of my knowledge there is no adult bereaved sibling group in the whole of NSW. Young children who are bereaved siblings get lots of support and interventions and yet are left to fend for themselves when they become adults.

So I took matters into my own hands and created a support group for adult bereaved siblings. I joined The Compassionate Friends NSW which is a worldwide volunteer organisation supporting bereaved family members. Through lots of advocacy and hard work I established its first adult bereaved sibling support group in April 2008. I subsequently also became the siblings representative on their council for a 2 year period.

Society in general just doesn’t recognise adult sibling grief. I think part of the reason is that people are surprised to know that my brother and I were very close and I miss him dreadfully. As adults we sometimes have antagonistic relationships with our siblings and there is this perception that adult siblings aren’t as close as they were when they were younger. This is not always the case. Through my group I have met many adult siblings who had positive and loving relationships with their siblings and who feel the same way I do.

I don’t know why sibling grief is not more widely recognised or considered in any way. Especially as an adult I feel that there are certain expectations that I am able to ‘cope’ better than I have and I feel a lot of judgement when I tell people that I still have bad days and find it hard to get out of bed and do what I have to do. People’s initial response is something like “aren’t you over it yet,” or “it has been nearly 5 years and you really need to move on.”

Of course on a superficial level I have moved on. I continue to work and eat and sleep and go through the motions of living my life. I have travelled and am currently studying and generally do everything I can to keep myself busy. Yet there is a part of me that died the day my brother died and that part of me will never be brought back to life. As much as I want to I cannot pretend that my brother hasn’t died and that his death hasn’t affected me in profound ways. I just do the best I can to get through each day the only way I know how. By the same token I don’t mean to paint a bleak picture and I am not severely depressed or suicidal. I just think it is important to acknowledge the sadness I feel and the reasons why.

The best advice I have received since my brother died is 2 very simple things. A good friend of mine in America wrote to me in the days after my brother’s death and she said to me that all I needed to do was to put one foot in front of the other and to try to keep walking – left foot/ right foot/ left foot/ right foot etc. I didn’t need to do anything more than that in the early days. That took an amazing amount of effort in itself but was something I could relate to.

The other piece of advice I received was to remember to breathe. As simple as it sounds it was something I would often forget to do. When things are so overwhelming and I feel as if I can’t possibly go on and the pain and grief is unbearable all I have to do is simply remember to breathe. Just breathe.

So as simple as it sounds and for whatever it is worth, that has become my mantra now and I remind myself of it on a daily basis – remember to put one foot in front of the other and to breathe whilst I am doing it!

——————————–

 

 

I dont have any questions to pose at the end of this. I just think that its important to sit with the words. Thanks M x

No other explanations…a TSIB interview

 

I asked a good friend who I met through my own space between, that being my passion about my work and me as a person, if they would be interested in chatting on here. We clicked the first time we met over the phone, he was calm and measured and unflappable. The opposite of me. Part of the reason for asking him to talk was I was to see how he dealt with the intersection of life and loss when you deal with it everyday at work. At some times in my life I haven’t been very good at juggling the two things. I can remember my life falling apart as a single mum and then having to back it up and tell a woman her son had died. Ill always remember another social worky buddy of mine who looked out for me that weekend when I thought the weight of the world would literally crush me.

Ive split this interview over two posts…I wanted people to sit with the honesty thats spoken here. I wanted people to give it the respect and time it needs, to honour someone who has put their heart on the page and shared the darkness and light.

Grab a seat, eat some of that leftover Easter fare and learn something about those people whose job it is to step in at bad times in life. His backstory is amazing…

 

So M…tell me about you?

My name is Emmanuel and I’m in my mid-30’s. I have a degree in social work and I’m currently employed as a counsellor. I am the oldest of 3 boys from an Australian-Greek family. From the age of 14 I knew I wanted to be a counsellor of some sort and am grateful to have found work I am passionate about. My family is typical in many ways and yet sometimes it feel as if there has been a dark cloud hanging over my family for many years.

My father died when I was 3 in quite traumatic circumstances. He was killed in a workplace accident. He was a painter by trade and fell off a ladder from the roof of a 3-storey building. As he fell he landed with the paintbrush handle going through his eye. He was taken to hospital and they operated to remove the paintbrush but he was declared brain dead. He was on life support for 3 days and then died when he stopped breathing of his own accord. He was 27 when he died. To this day I have not heard of anyone else dying in this way and I guess it is one of those things where you all you can say is that it was a freak accident and there really is no other explanation.

My mother remarried when I was 7 and my brother Theo was 5. They subsequently had a child together (my brother Peter). Growing up I felt as if I had to keep my thoughts and feelings about my father a secret, as he was never openly discussed in my home or by my extended family. Even now that I am an adult no one really talks about him and no one mentions his name. I acknowledge his birthday each year alone and the anniversary of his death too. No one rings me or texts me to see if I am okay. Other than my mother I really have no one to share these feelings with. I guess people think that given I have had a substitute dad all these years there is no point talking about or remembering the real one.

My brother Theo had contracted meningitis as a baby and was left hemiplegic (which basically means one side of his body was paralysed). He was subsequently diagnosed with epilepsy when he was 19. The doctors told us there was a direct link to his childhood meningitis and the brain trauma he had suffered. Over the next 8 years we supported him the only way we knew how – by loving him and giving him the space he needed to live his life with this affliction. I’d like to think that I understood as best as I could what it must have been like for him but I suspect I really had no idea. Theo’s seizures were what they call tonic-clonic and he would have an epileptic fit every 6-8 week’s.

Initially it was well controlled with medication, but over time the medication only contained the illness. His doctors had warned us that if he had a seizure that was severe enough it might kill him, but we didn’t really believe it and we never thought that it might happen. Sadly we were wrong. On 28 June 2007 Theo had a seizure and never woke up. The official cause of death was cardiac arrest, which had been induced by hypoxia to the brain following the seizure. Theo was 27 when he died, the same age my father had been and the irony of this is never far from my thoughts.

In thinking about your life what is your space in between?

I guess for me everything boils down to a life before my brother died and my life since he died. My space in between would be the delicate balance I have of continuing my relationship with my brother even though he is no longer with us in the physical sense, and trying not to allow his death to overwhelm and consume me.

I think also my space in between is the space where I can be completely honest with my feelings and emotions surrounding my brother’s death and the fact that I think about him every day and miss him dreadfully, versus the space where I am expected to put one foot in front of the other and get on with my life and continue to try and find joy and happiness when a lot of the time all I feel is sadness and despair.

Grief is such an individual thing and the intensity and rawness of it is something that you can never fully be prepared for. Even though I had lived the majority of my life with my father’s death, I was completely blindsided and torn to pieces when my brother died. The unresolved grief I felt for my father also manifested itself following my brother’s death and this has been difficult to cope with at times.

Space and time are such strange creatures. When Theo first died I remembered time dragging by so slowly. Everything related to time seemed to be out of balance. I wasn’t sleeping properly. I didn’t eat for about 2 week’s. I was living off coffee and cigarettes literally feeling as if I was slowly losing my mind and was convinced that I was going crazy. My senses were affected in the strangest ways. Everything seemed louder and noisier. Things smelt more powerfully and I felt completely disconnected from the world. It was as if time stood still, and yet all around me life continued to go on. I just didn’t feel as if I was part of it.

Now I can hardly believe it has been nearly 5 years since my brother died. That is my current reality and yet how can that possibly be? It honestly feels as if it happened yesterday. When you have moments when you look around you and realise it is 2012 and not 2007 anymore, you start to panic for a minute. You start to wonder about all sorts of things. What have I done with my life since my brother died? How have I managed to get by? More importantly how could I have lived this time without him? Am I honouring his life and memory with the choices I am making today?

The answer is I don’t really know sometimes. All I know is that now my space in between is a constant merry-go-round. It is a rollercoaster ride that never ends and I am on a journey that I will need to navigate as best as I can with the resources that I have at my disposal.

 

————————–

The second half of the interview will be up tomorrow….I think that multiple losses, regardless of how far apart they are, are ones that we dont understand. As a society we are not accustomed to the ambiguity of loss, we don’t necessarily understand the impact of each loss – I think when concurrent losses happen they can be viewed in unison and as direct impacts on each other.

I also wanted to say that Im always so amazed that people are so open and willing to share their piece of the world with me. If any of the content in any of my interviews are confronting please visit the Your Space In Between page for details of support services.

Has anyone dealt with multiple losses…how did you survive. Did time speed up or did it feel like the second hand on the clock was ticking so loudly that it was deafening?