Our Stories
A Father's Pain
Somehow, out of the blue, a child you love so deeply has lost their life. You feel completely and utterly shattered, unable to cope, you hurt so badly, there’s a pain that burns right to the core of your soul, you feel you want to die to take the pain away. You can’t die, there are those that love you, who need you, they are suffering the same grief, the same pain.
The pain rises and falls like an ebbing and flowing tide, just when you feel you might possibly manage the tide comes in again and overwhelms you, submerges you, it feels more than the mind, body and soul can bear.
So begins the cycle of grief, the shock, the disbelief, the denial, the depression, the anger, the hurt and the pain, etched deep inside you.
Outside the world carries on as usual, the postman delivers mail, the milkman delivers milk, people drive by on their way to work or shopping, builders build, children go to school, television and radio still broadcast. Your world has come to a shattering halt but everyone else’s world remains the same………and carries on.
Inundated with welcome messages of sympathy, cards, phone calls, visits; they help to keep the tide from coming in and drowning you, but the pain cannot go away and these outpourings will eventually come to a natural end……….and then you are on your own with those the very closest to you, who are in the depths of despair themselves.
An undertaker calls carrying a folder. His folder contains images of all the paraphernalia you will need to arrange and purchase a funeral.
You are captured, a prisoner of circumstance, making decisions which are impossible to imagine you would be making. Oak, Mahogany, Walnut, Cherry, Maple? How many cars? Burial or Cremation? Religious service or not? What music? Do you have the ability to pay?
You live close to a Church, a Church you occasionally attend, it has a cemetery; in your worst ever nightmare the Church close by is the best of these grim, frightening, terrible options, a place nearby, a place of calm and tranquility.
A Vicar visits. He is kindly, sympathetic, attempts, as best he can, to achieve a level of understanding. You somehow manage to orchestrate a service that best befits your loved one and is in keeping with the love you felt and still feel for the one you’ve lost, for that love will never die.
Did the vicar ask me to fill in a form? I don’t think so! I’m almost certain he didn’t! (how insensitive could anyone be). Did he tell me (as Vodafone or Sky might do) terms and conditions apply? no he didn’t! Did he tell me someone in his stead might turn up many years later and say terms and conditions do apply and that they will apply them retrospectively? No he didn’t!
In light of current events for all those who say “you knew the regulations and what you were signing up for” I say No! Nowhere in my wildest dreams did I think that many years later some uncaring person would appear and start removing simple items, items that help me express the love I still have for the one I lost. In a moment of the worst possible trauma that could happen to you, in a time of the deepest distress possible, can you imagine or foresee that there is a terms and conditions clause that will be invoked many years later, signed or not?
I have not written this to gain sympathy. All I ask is that a simple single token/item and/or quality fresh faux flowers be allowed to adorn a grave in memory of a precious loved one, it would be harmless. Please, please St Peter’s, show some humanity and allow me to do the only thing I can for my lost child, look after their grave in the best way I can.