Betty Madill - A Mothers Grief: Thirty Years On

A Mothers Grief

Thirty Years On

Betty Madill

Other books by the author

Sowing the Seeds of Hope, 1997 One Step at a Time, 2001, also
available as an eBook from Amazon

150th Anniversary of the Catholic Church in Inverurie, 2002
160th Anniversary of Catholic
Worship in Inverurie, 2012

Published by

Blue Butterfly Publishers Ltd Inverurie AB51 4ZR
Aberdeenshire
Scotland, UK

Betty MadillMarch 2016

ISBN: 978-0-9573670-5-0

ISBN: 978-0-9573670-6-7 (e book)

Betty Madill asserts her right to be known as the author of this book under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any format or on any recording devices, without prior written permission of the publishers.

Cover Designed by

Betty MadillMarch 2016

Printed by

Ingram Spark/Lightning Source

Data Protection

Although this book is a true account of what happened to our daughter and life while living in Rio de Janeiro. Names used within the context of my story have been altered to protect the identity of those people who were there and who played a part in the unfolding of the event within it.

Dedications

This book is dedicated to my family and my many compassionate friends, especially Sandra and Janet, who have continued to support me over these years through this most difficult of journeys.

Thanks also to the many bereaved parents who have encourage me to keep writing to let them and others know we do not have to travel the road of grief alone and that there are always others willing to share the load.

Also to the memory of Lisa and the little ones I was never meant to meet, but also helped to form me into the person I am now.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Patsy and Jackie who have given their time to proofread the typescript and helped produce a book that will help many, many bereaved parents to find a way forward that suits them and their needs.

Foreword

A Mothers Grief

Over, thirty years ago when my life changed for ever I had no idea of the journey that I had just embarked upon. Then one night, about two months following Lisas loss, when I was unable to sleep and feeling utterly bereft, I felt inspired by God to write an account of the emotional roller-coaster that my life became as a result of my three-year-old daughters death. At that point the last thing on my mind was any concept of turning my pain and grief into words on a page that would one day become a published book, but that is what happened, when One step at a time/Mourning a Child became a reality.

Every night from then on I would get ready for bed and before turning in for the night I would sit with a notebook and pen and wait to see what would emerge. Within minutes the ink would flow freely and words would tumble onto the pages so rapidly that my hand could just write fast enough as letter by letter the lines were filled with sentences and paragraphs.

It took eighteen years of perseverance and learning the ins and outs of the writers world before I found a publisher, Floris Books of Edinburgh. Their editor could see what I was trying to achieve by telling my story to help other bereaved parents to find their own way of dealing with the distress that arises from the death of their child - and he helped me to shape it into the book that it became.

Now, thirty years on, I find myself reflecting on the impact the death of Lisa has had upon my life and that of my family; and on the depths of despair and the stages along the road I have travelled, through the words of this new book. I hope to explore some of the suggestions I made in One step to reveal if indeed life did unfold as I had hoped it might, to discuss some of the unexpected issues which arose and show how my life and personality were affected as a direct result of my experience.

Yes, I would have preferred that Lisa had not died. But she did and writing has helped me move forward and enabled me to find a way of getting to grips with the agony that filled my every minute of each waking hour. It helped me to arrive at a point that I never would have believed was possible when I lost her when I could accept the fact that my daughter was dead and nothing could change that truth, but that her short life need not have been for nothing and her death would not be the final act of her time in the world. Therefore, if my writing down all the ins and outs of my journey helps any other bereaved parent to find a way forward in their grief, then her life and death would count for something and she would be remembered long after the three years and three months of her life.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

A Mothers Grief

Thirty years is a long time in anyones life and it is frightening how quickly time passes. It is only when we glance back do we realise that we have indeed travelled a long road to where we are now. When I began my path I had no knowledge of how I would get through the first hours never mind a whole life time. In the early days it was impossible to look beyond each day and each new day meant another day beyond the time when Lisa was alive and living with us. I found it agonizing to continue to survive without her to care for and despite the awfulness of the day she drowned it was hard to not relive it over and over, yet the reality was that gradually time crept forward and I was drawn further away from that darkest of days into a reluctant future. I came to realise that since I could not go back to a time where Lisa once lived I had to find ways of enabling myself to accept this and seek methods that would allow me to rebuild a new life, but fears of leaving Lisa behind in my past made this task feel like a necessary obligation rather than a sought-after aim. Like needing to go to the dentist to have a tooth filled it has to be done, however we know it will not be a pain free exercise. In saying this, I had no idea how much the pain would become part of my very existence, a pain no medicine could dull, a pain that was so real and solid it was impossible to shift, at least it was real and it allowed me to stay connected to Lisa somehow, it was an emotion I would have to learn to live with if I was to stay sane.

In the depth of my despair I was desperate for anything that would distract my mind, something to make a noise and reasons to get out of the apartment.

Writing became my salvation and protection for my sanity. It gave me a way to remove from my brain the tangle of thoughts which played repeatedly and continually throughout the day; once written onto the pages I was able to leave some of these thoughts there giving, me some measure of relief so that I was more able to deal with each new dawn as it arrived. Yet I was to discover that they were never erased entirely, just set aside for a while. I was also to find out that I would revisit each and every aspect of my loss many more times over the years and also learn that the gaps between each revisit would widen and become less frequent as time passed. Eventually I reached a point when I could actually choose not to go back over it, without feeling guilty about moving on because I also realised that I would never fully forget what I once had and could take myself back there whenever I wanted to or felt the need to, anytime. I had only to see a little girl with blond wispy hair and blue sparkling eyes, hear a particular song, visit a favourite venue or just take time out of my busy life to think of how my life could have been if things had turned out differently all those years ago.

One of the hardest things to get used to each day was the endless silence in our apartment. Anyone who has children knows how constant the sound is until the baby, the toddler, the child, the teenager goes to bed and is actually asleep, which in most households takes all day and with older kids much of the evening too. When Lisa died our apartment became devoid of that constancy of sound, play and chatter. Kevin had been fourteen months old when his sister passed away. He had depended on her as his playmate and had not begun to talk much and I did not, as yet, have the strength of mind to get down and play with him without Lisa being there. There was no longer the endless chatter and questions that all little children of Lisas age utter most of their waking hours. To solve this problem I would switch on the television just to have some background noise. It did not matter that all the programmes were transmitted in Portuguese (we were living in Brazil at the time) or that I did not understand enough of the language to take in much of what was being televised, but at least the place was no longer silent.