Recent Events

There have been many conversations in our house recently that I wish I didn’t have to have; most of them relating to death in some way.

It was initially due to the loss of Supergran and the boys consequently experiencing their first bereavement.

Little Bear’s anxiety around the subject comes out as an apparent Death Obsession. He talks about it all the time. Everything is dead according to him or he might want to kill something or he might wonder when someone is going to be dead. He has been this way for some time, to the point where I have to admit I mainly ignore the death overtures and I don’t let it concern me. We have all become somewhat complacent about it.

Recently he has evidently been pondering it a bit more though, asking questions such as “when you go to heaven, does a big hand come down to get you?” and “is Bob dead?” (Mr Foster Carer). He has checked a couple of times whether he is going to die soon. The questions appear at random points and are not necessarily related to things that are happening at the time, suggesting they are playing on his mind. In fact, at tea time this evening he randomly said “I hate Supergran now”. On further probing it turned out it was because she has died and essentially left him forever; something one assumes is quite triggering for a Care-experienced child.

I explained to him that it wasn’t her fault and that she was poorly and wouldn’t have wanted to leave him. He then said “she doesn’t love me any more does she?”. I tried to explain that Supergran will always love him, even though she isn’t here anymore and even though he cannot see her, she is still with him in his heart. This seemed to soothe him a little and then he confessed that he is worried that Grizzly or I might die.

Little Bear is sleeping really badly at the moment. It is hard to say why but as I’m writing this I’m wondering whether he is anxious. It is incredibly difficult to reassure children about death seeing as though it is inevitable. I tend to go with the usual platitudes about it only happening when you are really old etc. However, when they go to school one day and find out that somebody exploded a bomb in Manchester, purposefully trying to kill people, it becomes even more difficult to believe the reassurances. This time it isn’t some random place they haven’t heard of but a place they have visited and are aware is not too far away. Like children (and grown ups) up and down the country, my Bears are somewhat freaked out.

I don’t think that Little Bear fully understands the severity of what has happened, which is good, but I also feel he struggles to verbalise any questions or wonderings he might have, potentially leading to a far scarier narrative going on in his brain. He was the first to figure out though that Grizzly could have been there as he often works in Manchester and other potentially dangerous big cities, which has no doubt compounded his previous anxieties.

Big Bear, on the other hand, knows far too much about everything and has asked me many a question. Last night’s conversation began with me having to explain what will happen at Supergran’s funeral. Due to his constant earwigging of the hard to have grown up conversations that have been happening, I also had to explain what a “Chapel of Rest” is and that Supergran will know that people are going through her belongings and that it is ok that some of them are going to the charity shop because she doesn’t need them any more (he was concerned that it might be disrespectful). He also wanted to know how she got Cancer in the first place.

Somehow this conversation led on to “Mum, what is a Suicide Bomber?” – words that you would never wish to hear leaving the mouth of a 7 year old. Admittedly he was saying “suicide robber” but I knew what he meant. He had also heard the term “terrorist” and wanted to know what it all meant. I don’t believe in lying to children (though being able to shield them from the truth would be preferable) and feel I should give them as much information as they want/ are capable of processing. Once I nearly caused my Mum in Law’s friend to choke on her tea as Big Bear happened to ask me how babies come out of their mummy’s tummies when she was there and I think my answer of “they have to push them out of their lady bits” was a bit too honest and graphic for her!

Unfortunately this topic wasn’t as pleasant as I tried to navigate why someone would want to kill themselves/ others, whether it would happen again, whether the bomber had any “friends” we should be concerned about and if they would start bombing our houses. Now he has added ISIS, IRA and counterterrorism to his vocabulary too.

It is a truly terrifying world that we are raising our children in.

I wish that it wasn’t necessary for me to have had all these hard conversations with my children this week. I wish they could grow up freer and with more innocence. I wish I didn’t have to consider carefully each place that we might go to and wonder how likely it is to be a terrorist target. I wish parents up and down the country didn’t have to either.

I wish they didn’t need to know what cancer is or wonder about who will get it next.

It is hard with the current state of affairs not to become an anxious hermit who is scared of the world.

I guess everyone will find different ways of moving forwards and getting on with it. For me I think I want to be outside as much as possible. The world is actually full of beauty and our little corner is not scary at all.

I have spent today in my garden, taking some feelings out on the weeds. I enjoyed the peace and the sun. In one flower bed I found some Crocosmia which were not part of my colour scheme when I planted it and that I have been trying to pull out for a few years. Somehow, despite my best efforts, they are still there. It struck me that they are a metaphor for life right now: I’ve tried and tried to destroy them but they refuse to be destroyed. It doesn’t matter what I throw at them they are strong. I have given up on my colour scheme: who wouldn’t want some bright orange flowers to look at anyway? We need to be like the Crocosmia; we need to keep bouncing back no matter what life throws at us.

Life is still good and we need to live it to the full. This weekend I will be wearing my favourite dresses (not saving things for special occasions), spending quality time with my boys, letting them have that ice cream or stay up for 10 extra minutes. We will be doing nice things, eating nice food and having as many cuddles as possible. I will be telling them I love them frequently. #cherishthegood