Offering My Anthem
7 years ago today, we lost our son Dirk. That emotional nuclear bomb casts a long shadow, still. No matter how hard I try for the reality to be otherwise, it does. Forever, in our hearts, a hole will exist where Dylan’s big brother should be walking by his side. A big sibling for him to look up to. To be in love and alive with.
Even subconsciously, at 4-years-old, a void he is all too aware of. The shadow within the family affects him, like it does us. But he deserves to know. What other option is there? No matter how stark, we have no choice than accept our truths. It is the only place to nurture healing.
The fact that Dirk and his mummy, my remarkable wife, were failed in the way they were was too painful to bear. And, by any usual moral, ethical and professional standard, they were failed.
The fact that health professionals covered their tracks with lies and deceit compounded the anguish unnecessarily, layer on layer. Refusing to admit their truths, personnel said one thing to our faces and the 180-degree opposite in the clinical negligence case. Shape-shifters, fighting for their jobs. Prepared to stoop low.
Characters we had become friends with, turning into our nemeses. Making our recovery so much harder to achieve. Events harder to believe. So much more debilitating because of the obstacles put between forgiveness. Adding to the sense of betrayal. The unbearable sense of loss, amplified.
Yet we are where we are. Life leaves us with no choice. We have to go on. To live. In defiance of death. To find ways around adversity. Against seemingly insurmountable odds, to ascend. Somehow turning the lessons on the lessons, themselves. In spite of the injustices a life can face. Surviving. Defying the inevitability of death.
I am all too aware that, heaven forbid, had I given up, had I not gone on, had I not broken for the surface from my metaphorical drowning, we would not have persevered and experienced the golden miracles we have. With what does not kill us, literally galvanising us, making us strong.
With this anniversary looming, the terrors return, and the scale of the fright has resurrected itself. All I need to do when this happens is invest a few moments aweing at our little miracle, Dylan. In so doing, acting positively, not regretting, the anguish subsides, and the gratitude emboldened.
Rarely could a little being have performed such a majestic rescue as our little Son Number 2. My gratitude to him knows no bounds.
We were told after our stillbirth and two very graphic miscarriages that it would be a good idea to “explore other options to becoming parents”. The doctor even said, “the yearning will never go away”. That moment was a sickener.
But as I turned to join her, this was the very moment when Karen seemed to set her jaw. She visibly shifted up a gear and I saw an emphatic determination to become a mother. A moment that I am still in awe of to this day. Immeasurably grateful for. Totally in awe. Against seemingly impossible odds, she made our miracle. She refused to give up.
Forevermore, her birthday will be the following day from Dirk’s. I can barely comprehend how hard this annual mile-marker is for her to pass. The son-shaped hole, bleaker than bleak. A hole inside no mother should ever have to bear. Least of all a mother who – after 7 years of trying - carried her baby so ecstatically for 40 weeks. To full-term. Only to have delight dashed into despair in twisted fate.
As some project of self-repair, I committed my journey from delight to despair back to delight into a book. Which, following almost 7 years of my battles with the anguish, palpable horrors and indisputable trauma of child-loss, I published on 21st August this year. I always aspired for its publication to be a catharsis. In the days following clicking my enter key to transmit it to the ether, I was impaled by an all-consuming exhaustion.
Then, gradually, as the mists melted, I felt myself exiting the shadowy valley of bereavement. Permanently scarred. Accepting, never to be the person I was again. Bereft of so, so many friendships. But moving forward. Recovering. Living. Growing. Ascending. Thanks-filled. Recognising no pattern in this life is unchangeable. There is power in the shadows. If only we invest the love needed to look.
To My Anthem:
This morning on the radio, following an unsettled night of wishing I could have done more and been more. Feeling the abject sense of failure for not making the hospital send for the obstetrician our unborn son deserved. With the groundswell of rage, heartache and utter hopelessness resurgent, this song came on the radio. ‘My song’, my anthem, my spirit.
It reminded me of 19th April 1987. The morning after we received the news my dad had died suddenly of a heart attack in a restaurant in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Setting off at 7am to drive the 2 hours to go and see him in the morgue, this son came on my car radio.
Labi Siffre probably is sublimely unaware of the fact that his words have saved my life a number of times over the years. But that morning, back in a stark April in 1987, now this morning in a solemn November 2021, and at many low ebbs in between, his words rescue me again and again.
They seem all the more poignant that with the backdrop of COP 26 and the incomprehensible lack of fairness being shown by world leaders, Labi’s words ring truer with every passing moment of injustice. If you are reading this, Labi, few people could ever be more grateful than I am to you.
Thank you.
“The higher you build your barriers
The taller I become
The further you take my rights away
The faster I will run
You can deny me
You can decide to turn your face away
No matter, cos there's
Something inside so strong
I know that I can make it
Tho' you're doing me wrong, so wrong
You thought that my pride was gone
Oh no, something inside so strong
Oh oh oh oh oh something inside so strong
The more you refuse to hear my voice
The louder I will sing
You hide behind walls of Jericho
Your lies will come tumbling
Deny my place in time
You squander wealth that's mine
My light will shine so brightly
It will blind you
Cos there's
Something inside so strong
I know that I can make it
Tho' you're doing me wrong, so wrong
You thought that my pride was gone
Oh no, something inside so strong
Oh oh oh oh oh something inside so strong
Brothers and sisters
When they insist we're just not good enough
When we know better
Just look 'em in the eyes and say
We're gonna do it anyway We’re gonna do it anyway
Something inside so strong
And I know that I can make it
Tho' you're doing me wrong, so wrong
You thought that my pride was gone
Oh no, something inside so strong
Oh oh oh oh oh something inside so strong
Brothers and sisters
When they insist we're just not enough
When we know better
Just look 'em in the eyes and say
We're gonna do it anyway
We're gonna do it anyway Because there's something inside so strong
And I know that I can make it
Tho' you're doing me, so wrong
Oh no, something inside so strong
Oh oh oh oh oh something inside so strong”
Labi Siffre ©
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