Transcript
Meet Our Contributors
00:00:00 Contributors
My Mum was diagnosed with cancer when I was 8 years old.
When I was 14 years old, I lost my Dad to a sudden heart attack.
So I lost my Mum when I was 11 years old of a brain tumour.
I lost my Dad to suicide when I was 5 years old.
When I was 13 years old, my Dad had a heart failure.
I felt utterly just devastated.
How Does It Feel to Lose a Loved One?
00:00:30 Contributors
I couldn't control my emotions very well.
I was very confused.
I was very angry.
I feel sad when my Daddy, like, he's not here.
I thought he was alive for about two months after, so I just didn't, I wouldn't, I couldn't come to terms with it. I just didn't believe it.
My Dad's gone forever and he's never gonna come back.
You can't really prepare for it.
What You Don't Know Before Someone Dies
00:01:00 Contributors
You know, you can read as much as you like, you can speak to as many people and you can understand the process and the emotions you may feel, but when you're in that situation and when you're faced with the trauma, the darkness, it's something that you can't prepare for.
It's really, really important to not judge people for their grieving process because everyone grieves differently. Me and my sister have both lost our Dad, but we both grieve very, very differently and we have a very different outlook on the grieving process. You could all lose the same person, but your relationship with that person is all very different and so that impacts how you grieve.
Every day it can be really different. Sometimes you just want to be left alone and just want to hide and just feel by yourself, and sometimes you want to talk.
What Advice Would You Give Other Children?
00:02:00 Contributors
I saw my counsellor and I lied to her for the first few months, I just lied about everything. I thought, I'm not opening up to a stranger, but the day that I started opening up to her was probably the best thing that's ever happened to me. To speak to someone who's not going to judge you and who's just actually there to support you and to help you figure out this new normal is really, really important.
What Do Winston's Wish Do?
00:02:40 Contributors
Winston's Wish is a National children's bereavement charity and we support children from the ages of 0 to 25 after the death of someone important to them. So we have a team of specialists that run our on-demand services to be able to provide that really vital support at that time.
Me and my brother were both struggling, so my dad got in contact with Winston's Wish and I had some of their online counselling service, which was really helpful because speaking to someone that knew what they were talking about, I guess was really helpful. Sometimes in your grief, having someone there to talk to it feels like you're being a burden to someone. It was really important to me that there was just someone there that I knew that I could go to every day that would listen and could offer some support and some different strategies that I might not have thought of.
We also have a different level of support, which is really around some of the one-to-one support for children and young people or group support to help them explore their grief. In terms of what worked, it was definitely being put in touch with other kids our age that had been through the same thing. Everybody there just understood what you were going through.
What's Been Helpful?
00:04:00 Contributors
One of the most difficult things that adults have to do is to tell a child that someone important to them has died and sometimes we want to make it better. It comes from a place of lots of love, but actually honesty is really important. So I've got a very scientific mind, so I needed someone to break it down and actually explain it to me and although it was a very difficult conversation and it was very black and white, 'Your dad's passed away, he's not coming back.' I sort of needed to hear that. I needed someone to actually tell me that so that I could actually then start my grieving process.
I found poetry incredibly uplifting. It was a creative outlet just kind of descrambling the confusion. It provided me with a sense of purpose.
I really like to draw because it makes me more calm and I think about, like, I am in a beach and there's birds flying on the beach like last time I was going to the beach with my Dad.
I found a lot of my writing has reached other people, especially when it's shared on social media platforms. I think the first time I wrote something was about how I coped with anniversaries with my Mum and I know that's something I really struggled with and felt quite isolated with.
One thing that really helped me in my grieving process is someone once told me that, 'Okay, they're not here physically, however, they're still here mentally.' So even to this day, when I do make life decisions, I always factor in what my dad would have told me.
The greatest compliment I get is when someone compares me to my Mum and someone says, you know, 'You remind me so much of her when you do this, you know, your smile' and I think it's just a way of keeping that person alive.
Talking About Death and the Person Who's Died
00:05:30 Contributors
Death is such a taboo. People aren't taught to talk about it. So I kind of have made it my own mission, to speak to my friends and make it something we talk about for it to be okay, by bringing her up casually. Yeah, she's then part of my life as well.
When I sleep, I see everything black and I see some white dots like stars. My Mum always tells me that if you see one star, that means the star is my Dad, my star is my Dad.
Being Sensitive to Someone Grieving
00:06:10 Contributors
One of my teachers was just so switched on with it all. If, you know, me and my brother ever looked a little bit like we weren't quite okay, they would come over and check with us. They would say, 'Do you need some time out?' And we were, kind of, given opportunities for quiet time, on our own.
Although I do remember a classmate being able to join us once because he lost a pet. I think it was like a guinea pig or something and he was allowed to come and have quiet time with me and my brother, who had obviously like recently lost our Dad and I remember thinking even then like, I'm not sure this is the same.
People are too scared to say death, I think. So I think they don't want to say to an 11 year old, 'Oh yeah, your Mum might die.' Even though that was the very possible truth that did happen. People are afraid of saying the wrong thing. And what I noticed is because of this fear there was, people chose to not say anything at all.
What Helped and What Didn't Help
00:07:10 Contributors
But saying nothing at all is equally as bad. I've had a teacher who held me back once and said to me, 'Do you miss your Dad?' And it's questions like that, it's sort of like, you just can't say it. So how are you feeling? And it was very open and vague and then they sort of pushed the box of tissues over and you just sort of sit there and go, 'Okay, this isn't really specific. I don't even know where to start.'
Telling me things like, 'Give it time, you'll get over it.' I was 13 at the time and lots and lots of people used to say to me, you know, 'Look after your Mum, look after your siblings,' because I'm the oldest. When someone's gone through a loss like that, no matter how old they are, you've got to focus on yourself.
People came to me saying, you know, 'Be strong.' Am I not allowed to feel things? Am I not allowed to feel vulnerable? And you know, you have to be cautious with the terminologies, the words you use. 'They're in a better place.' It takes away from what has actually happened. You know, 'a better place' would be enjoying her family life the next 10, 15, 20 years.
It's OK to Feel Whatever You're Feeling
00:08:20 Contributors
My best advice would be that it's okay to feel. If you are doing something that is happy, then you're allowed to be happy. If it is your Birthday, if it's Christmas, you know, any of these big celebrations, it doesn't have to be a sad day just because that person isn't there anymore. You're still allowed to feel happy, and no one should judge you for anything like that.
If you want to be sad, if you want to be angry, if you want to cry, you're allowed to have any of those emotions. Not a lot of people will understand the grief that you feel and therefore really can't tell you how you should be feeling. So definitely it would be feel what you want to.
