Sally helps in the Bereavement Support Group!

The university staff have been so kind to me that I didn’t feel that I could say no when I was asked to attend the first meeting of the new season of the Bereavement Support Group. Not as a client but as one of the experts!  

There were supposed to be 5 first years coming along as part of their induction offer but only 4 of them arrived so I don’t know anything about one lad. Two of the other four had been raised by a single parent who then had died when the student was still at school.  The other 2 had lost one parent each but still had one left – the parents had died through illness or accident. 

It sounds rather disloyal to say this but I didn’t think that the University Chaplain who hosted this first meeting had given enough (any?) thought as to what the students were thinking or feeling. I don’t imagine that he had the slightest idea if any or all of them were active, or even passive, Christians before launching into an opening prayer. You get one chance to make a first impression and I think he flopped fairly spectacularly. 

Most of the meeting was quite informal. My only solo contribution was telling the new under graduates a little bit about my history. So now they all know that I have something in common with them and that I am talking from first-hand experience about losing a parent – or in my case losing both! The two boys found it harder to express their emotions than the girls and I think that stupid belief that “real men don’t cry” does so much damage in cases like this. 

One of the girls reminded me of how I must have been three years ago. Rather battered around the edges and still having to struggle to get through the dark days that used to arrive without warning. It was something in her eyes that was the most poignant part of how she looked. I could tell that she was looking for friendship with a “like minded” person but I know, believe me I know, that she needs to find her day-to-day support and companionship with people on her course or people who share her outside interests. A post-graduate PGCE student isn’t really what she needs at the moment. 

After the meeting had ended and the students had left the volunteers and the group co-ordinator had a 15 minute de-brief. We all agreed that we would not want the Chaplain, who had already left, to attend future meetings. I’m pleased that I did agree to take part in the group and I think I will continue to attend the regular sessions.

Two voices from the past.

I have been told by lots of different people that on the phone I sound like my (deceased) Mother so I wasn’t altogether surprised when having said nothing apart from my phone number a lady called Sian launched into a “its been far too long conversation” thinking that she was talking to my Mum who had been on the same course as her at university.

It was quite embarrassing to have to stop her in mid-flow to say, “No this is Sally, her daughter” followed by, “I’m afraid she died 4 years ago.” Of course it was difficult for Sian as well partly because it showed how long it had been since she had last been in touch and partly because, like most people, she found talking to a bereaved person to be an uncomfortable experience.

Despite this awkward start we had a 20 minute chat and I learned a few things about Mum’s university days that I didn’t know before. It seems as if the last time Sian and my Mum spoke was about three months before the accident. Sian was surprised that there hadn’t been any mention of the accident in the old student’s newsletter but the reason for this was simple – I hadn’t thought to send any notification to the editor. Sian has now offered to do this.

When people die there is an almost unending list of people and organisations that have to be told and so the less urgent or less important ones tend to get overlooked.

Two days later I got a phone call from my former lodger. We shared the house when I was still at school (yes, that long ago!) so I was very surprised to hear from her. At first having her living in my house had worked really well but she didn’t live to the promises she made when she moved in. She had long spells of working away and she didn’t give me much notice when she moved to Belfast. She paid all the money she owed me so that wasn’t the problem but it was only a few days between her telling me the sad news and her leaving me for good. She sent me a three line note when she started her new job and that was the last time I ever heard from her until this week. I did feel that I had been rather exploited by her and that perhaps she wasn’t always totally candid with me so I wasn’t altogether sorry that I didn’t have a spare room for her to rent!

It has felt strange looking backwards twice in quick succession. When bereavement strikes you have to discipline yourself to keep looking forward – you would never get through the nastiness otherwise – so interacting with people from the past still feels rather strange.

Doing a good deed - in a cemetery!

I went across town to clean Mum and Dad's grave this morning (Sunday). It is supposed to be summer at the moment but it was really cold and also thinking about raining. Most unusually there were other cars in the car park and at least four other groups of people either tending or just looking at graves. I wonder if this was because this is a Bank Holiday weekend?

What surprised me the most was that there was somebody tidying the grave next to my Mum and Dad's. In all the many times I have visited the cemetery over the last 4+ years I have never seen anybody doing this to my "next door neighbour's" grave. The old man - perhaps late 70s - introduced himself as Edward. The deceased was his wife but since he moved away to be nearer to his children he doesn't visit her very often. He has decided that he is too old to drive so he came by train, visited the grave on Saturday then stayed at a local guest house before making a second visit to the cemetery on the Sunday. He looked sad and very tired and as it is quite a walk to the station I did my good deed for the day and offered him a lift in my car. He seemed very grateful so I was glad I had thought to do this.

I didn't get much of a look at the other visitors but I did notice a lady in her 20s in the newest section of the cemetery. From the back it looked like the shape of a child's grave so that was upsetting.

One mixed emotion event that happened this week was the effective “closure of the file” on Granddad by the Crown Prosecution Service. I’m happy that the legal side is finished but I did rely on them for free advice and support.

I now owe my solicitor a fantastic sum – which I haven’t got – so I am going to have sell some of the shares that Mum and Dad left me. I don’t really understand why I as the victim should end up out of pocket and I will have to double check if the solicitor was joking when she said I could claim the money back off Nan and Granddad. 

Since Mum and Dad died so many people seem to have assumed that I already knew things that no normal teenager would ever need to know. It has been quite annoying and frustrating when legal and financial people imply that I’m stupid not knowing things that they regard as really obvious or really simple.

I hope the horrid feeling of restlessness will go away

Last week Granddad was sentenced to 10 years and 9 months in prison. The judge seemed to take a long time to announce the sentence but I noticed that there was a whole list of aggravating factors and not one mitigating one which is why he got almost the maximum sentence allowed. It was so strange being there hearing Granddad’s character being destroyed piece by piece and knowing that my Mum (from Heaven) and I were finally getting justice. I didn’t take in all the details so I hope that somebody was taking notes.  

The last few weeks leading up to the trial have been very difficult which is why I haven’t been blogging or visiting Facebook. Now Granddad’s trial is out of the way I hope that my life will become less complicated and less stressful and the horrid feeling of restlessness I have been battling against for so long will go away.  

After the trial I had a few days away but when I got home we found out that both my Nan (in person) and my Granddad (via his solicitor) had been causing problems. Nan went round to my aunt trying, according to my aunt, to re-write history. When my aunt wouldn’t listen to what she had to say Nan got very, very angry. Granddad’s solicitor has tried to pass on a message from Granddad to me but I refused to open the letter and I got my boyfriend to take it back to the solicitor’s office unopened. I didn’t think I had any interest in anything Granddad had to say!  

Other members of the family then decided that there were “things that needed to be said” so they said them to anybody who would listen just to make themselves feel better, or less guilty. Top of the fairly long naughty list are my Dad’s parents. They have suddenly decided to move back to the UK full time instead of splitting time between the USA and UK. I remember how little they did to help me when Mum and Dad were killed so it is rude and silly of them to complain to my Mum’s side of the family about how I must have felt abandoned after the accident. Dad’s parents are not nasty people, not at all. If you met them socially you would think that they are very pleasant. But they never seemed to mourn the death of my Dad and they didn’t feel able (or didn’t feel willing?) to offer me any decent level of emotional support after the funeral and in the years that followed. They had their lives mapped out and having a grand-daughter in their lives wasn’t part of their master plan.  

I am very short of close family members. I don’t have any brothers or sisters, my Mum and Dad are dead, Granddad is in prison and the other 3 Grandparents are busy re-writing history. All I can say is that it is a good job that I have my friends and my aunts and uncles!! I never thought that my life was going to work out like this – it seems like a lifetime ago since the accident but it isn’t even five years.