Everything changes

When Lenny died everything changed. When Bhai died everything changed again. The loss of our two sons has been profound and devastating but when your child dies it isn’t “just” their loss that you grieve or that changes. This isn’t something we have mentioned much because the loss of our sons has been so catastrophic it has eclipsed everything else but most people would find these life changes alone to be stressful and difficult. In my discussions with bereaved parents it has become really apparent to me that we are not alone in this and that these are huge life changes experienced by so many of us.

Often these are called, “secondary losses” – this is a term used to describe all the other losses people experience which are separate to but directly related to the loss. Framing it in this way has felt pretty devastating to me, because we really have lost so much in addition to our boys.

More recently, I have started to think of this more as secondary changes. These are changes without our consent that happened as a direct result of Lenny and Bhai’s deaths. I feel this honours the new things and people which and who have come into our lives as a result of loss. For example, Roy felt forced out of a career and job he had once loved – it just didn’t fit anymore this felt like a huge loss for him, but when he set up his business people would say wow isn’t that great. For Roy, his business feels bitter sweet- he works with his best mate, predominantly outside, creating amazing spaces for people to enjoy…. But it wouldn’t exist if Lenny and Bhai hadn’t died.

Here’s a list of just some of the things that have changed for us in the last few years:

• perspective – we view the world totally differently;
• Confidence – at times we feel invincible but most of the time our confidence in ourselves and the world has really reduced;
• Sense of identity- we don’t recognise the people we were before;
• Ability to plan – we were so planned and ready to bring our first child home and everything came crashing down at his birth, we had the courage to start to plan for Bhai and again it came crashing down;
• Outlook for the future – we darent be too optimistic or think too far ahead, we felt hopeful and resilient after Lenny died but when Bhai died we realised we are not exempt from further pain, loss and trauma;
• Feeling joy and having fun – it might surprise some to know that we have laughed every single day since Lenny was born but this is nothing like pre-loss. It’s not that our joy is tinged with sadness either. It’s that the sadness and pain is ever present AND there is joy;
• Energy levels – there is no tired like grief tired… this deserves its own blog!
• Jobs – both of us have had major career changes;
• Pets – we are now a dog plural household not a dog single household;
• Our house – we have changed a lot of our home to make it feel right for us now;
• Our relationship- how we are with each other, our need for communication;
• Feelings of safety – death anxiety about other people who you love is real! ;
• Concept of risk – I would never describe us as risk averse but now we have been part of tiny percentages our understanding of risk has changed;
• Family planning- our family will never be complete, we could have ten more living children and there will always be two missing…. But we would likely never have chosen to have more than two children if we hadn’t experienced loss -now we have 3 but only one alive;
• Capturing and recording – we didn’t have social media and didn’t take photos but now everything feels so precious and we feel the need to take photos and record these times;
• Love- I love the people in my life more fiercely, I love the people who are no longer in my life, I care more deeply about people generally;
• I absolutely cannot deal with small talk. I just can’t. I used to be able to do that. I just cannot; and a big one
• Relationships- every single relationship with friends or family has changed directly as a result of Lenny and Bhai’s deaths. Some relationships have been completely lost, some relationships are new since Lenny died, all that have continued have changed immeasurably. Every. Single. One. The saying grief rearranges your address book has been a true and painful reality for us. After the death of our sons, losing people we thought were lifelong friends has been the hardest change for us. People we barely knew are now close friends, we are so grateful for those who have stuck by us and those who have leaned in when they barely knew us;

We will all experience different changes, some small, some big. Fundamentally though, when it comes to baby and child loss, I think our worlds have to shift. Its not fair, it is another thing that happens without our permission but in our experience being dynamic and moving with grief has felt right. Fighting it and trying to keep everything the same didn’t.