Grief – A Mother’s Experience

A morning I’ll never forget

It was during the early hours of a Tuesday morning in January 2012 when I was woken by the knock of two uniformed police officers at my front door, the blue lights flashing on their patrol car outside illuminating the dark bedroom, spurring my body into action before my brain had even realised what was happening. They explained to me that my son had been seriously injured, that it didn’t look good and that I needed to go with them to the hospital immediately.

This is the type of visit that you never ever want to nor expect to experience; this happens to “other” people not to you nor the people you know! I recall having seen TV programs and films where, under similar circumstances, the fictional mother would collapse to the floor, screaming and crying inconsolably, however this was not the way it affected me.

I went into an immediate shock and denial of what was happening. I honestly thought that these officers were wrong, that they were exaggerating the injuries or that they’d got the wrong person and that when I got to the hospital I’d be able to tell them this wasn’t my son.

We waited at the hospital where a doctor explained to us that my son had suffered catastrophic injuries and was in surgery and that they didn’t hold out much hope. Again I refused to believe that this was my boy they were talking about, I knew they were wrong, he’d be okay. Unfortunately I was the one who was wrong and my son passed away on that operating table.

This could not be happening

Even when identifying his body I could still not accept this was real, I was numb and empty. My first born child, my only son, had been brutally ripped from our lives at the young age of 25yrs old. He had been targeted and run over by a driver who was in a cocaine psychosis, he did not know his attacker and was a totally innocent victim in the incident.

The months following his murder all seem to meld into one. The devastation his death caused was felt by so many people and I felt for each and every one of them.

I operated in an almost automatic fashion to get through each day. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t concentrate nor think for myself. It was a battle to get up and go out, how could life continue as “normal” out there?! How could I go on as normal when I wanted death to take me too.

We attended all of the court hearings, each day of the trial and sentencing but it still felt like I was in some strange twisted sort of movie, this couldn’t really be happening to us. Reading and watching the media coverage about it made the whole experience even more surreal to me. I felt totally detached from all “normality”. I longed to wake up from the nightmare, or for my son to jump out and tell me it was all an elaborate hoax.

The Aftermath

Following the trial and sentencing I was left with a profound emptiness and helplessness. Far from bringing me a sense of justice or closure I was acutely aware that the trial had really changed nothing. My son was still dead, there were still two young lives cut short and two sets of family and friends left grieving what could have been. Throughout all I have felt an odd sense of pity and empathy for my son’s killer and his family too, I expect this to seem abnormal to most people but I was never able to feel hatred towards him, I wouldn’t go as far as saying I forgive him either and although I agree in principle to the idea of restorative justice, I was unable to accept this when it was offered to me.

I have never before experienced such extreme emotional turmoil as this whole period of my life brought to me. In the early days I could run through a whole series of emotional states within a few hours, including anger at my son for dying and the consequent guilt and shame for having felt like that. There was so much I kept inside me as I didn’t know how to express the shame, guilt and self-punishment that I felt. My depression and deep grief almost became a burden I felt I needed and deserved to carry.

My son’s killer received a life sentence, 13 years minimum to be served. He will become eligible for parole in 2025. As yet I do not know how this will affect me but I know I will deal with it when the time comes and with the love and support of the people in my life I will remain strong.

Learning the lessons of grief

I am definitely no longer the same person I was on that cold dark morning years ago. I have been through an intense and profound set of experiences that have distinctly changed me, in many respects for the better.

One of the most important lessons I learned through this period was how vital love is in a person’s life. I am incredibly blessed and have a wonderful family and friends who all came together and provided the support, love, time and compassion that we needed. I am now a firm believer in the power of universal love and its healing, transformative power.

How to help a grieving parent

If there is one small piece of advice that I can offer to anyone who has not been personally touched by this type of profoundly deep grief, it would be please do not be afraid to talk to a grieving parent. I know of cases where people have been at such a loss about how to deal with parents in this situation that they completely avoid them, we have experienced this ourselves. Although I can understand how this situation might occur, I also know the additional grief it causes to the parents. The feeling of being “punished” and let down by a friend you thought you knew and could rely on is devastating and long-lasting.

The bereaved parent knows that you don’t know what to say, there really is nothing you can say but to be there with them whilst they go through the turmoil inside means more than they could possibly ever explain.

Talk if they want to talk, laugh with them if that’s what they want, remember their loved one with them, if they cry that’s okay, it’s not because you reminded them to be sad (they’ll never need reminding of that) but because they loved their deceased one so much.

Although initially I felt so much pain and emptiness at our loss, it hurt so much to remember our time together, years on I absolutely love to talk about him, remember him and hear new tales about him and his life. Being able to talk easily about my son and his life is now a blessing for me.

A message of hope and recovery

I have battled with grief, accepted it, been angry about it, seen it as a weakness in myself, feared giving in to it. There have been times when I have felt that I shouldn’t “get over my grief”, I deserved to be unhappy, my pain was the only thing still holding me to my son.

I still have days when I become overwhelmed with the loss and the weight of missing him, I have days where I can’t face seeing or talking to anyone but I’m glad to say that those days are getting less frequent now.