I Wondered How She Was Doing Now

A few days ago I found myself thinking about somebody who I used to know. She and I met at a Parents and Toddlers group sixteen years ago, but our paths hadn’t crossed in recent years. Her youngest daughter is around the same age as Leah.

Two years previous to us meeting up at Parents and Toddlers, her only son, a toddler, had drowned in a tragic accident. I was heartbroken for her. I could not imagine the enormity of her loss. However I always appreciated her openness and her honesty as she recounted to me the awful details of that day and the days that followed it, while our little ones played happily together and sang nursery rhymes.

She told me of how traumatised her older daughter was, from the events of that terrible day. She talked about the many ways in which grief was affecting her children and her marriage. She spoke about her efforts to source grief support for her children and how frustrated she felt at times about the suitability of what was available. Those were very difficult days for all of them.

This past week I unexpectedly found myself recalling these conversations and wondering what life was like for her and her daughters now. I wished that I could ask her how many years the sense of ‘brokenness’ had persisted.

Today when I was in Tesco paying for my groceries I noticed that she was beside me! We walked out of the shop together and chatted for several minutes. I asked her how her two girls were doing. It sounds like they are both doing really well. I’m so happy for her and for them. I asked her how she had coped with her older girl leaving home and the fact that her younger girl will soon be leaving home also; I got a very positive upbeat response – she’s really happy to see them both doing so well.

I wanted to ask her how many years it had taken her to actually start feeling okay again, but I wasn’t entirely sure that she knew about Leah’s death and I knew that I would just start crying. I really didn’t think it was fair to dump my emotions on her – she’s had more than her fair share of dark days. To be honest, maybe it was enough for me to know that they have all survived emotionally and that there is a light at the end of this dark tunnel.

Beautiful People Do Not Just Happen

That Thursday, like so many other days, is indelibly imprinted on my mind.

Our Belfast consultant had previously informed me that Leah’s medical details had been sent to the paediatric haematology team at Bristol Children’s Hospital and that they would be discussing her case that day at a team meeting, with a view to possibly accepting her for treatment.

I hated the thought of being so far away from home, but I had done my online research into the hospitals in Dublin, Belfast and Bristol. I had become increasingly convinced that Leah’s best chances of survival, humanly speaking, lay in her being accepted for treatment at Bristol Children’s Hospital.

I spent most of that Thursday afternoon quietly praying.

At 7.20pm our Belfast haematology consultant phoned me to inform us that Bristol Children’s Hospital had indeed accepted Leah for treatment. I was so relieved and so pleased.

Our first phone call from this doctor on Friday the 19th April had been such a negative experience.

Our first meeting with him had been even worse, but in this phone call I started to see him for the caring, compassionate man that he really is.

I eventually chased him off the phone, as I was sure that the poor man had probably not even had his dinner yet. He had given me all the time that I needed in this phone call.

The fourteen weeks that Leah and I spent in Bristol changed our lives forever.

Some of those changes are very sad, traumatic ones.

I hardly know how to word this, because I will NEVER be glad that my daughter suffered and died, yet I can still appreciate the many positive aspects of our time in Bristol.

I very much appreciate the amazing staff and patients and families that Leah and I met during our time there.

Although I’m heartbroken, yet I’m also enriched, by those that I’ve had the privilege of getting to know along this journey.

Beautiful inside and out

This girl had such a beautiful heart – the reference to her and I needing emotional healing is because we were both heartbroken over all the ill children and young people we had met in Bristol but especially over the ones who had died. We found “survivors guilt” quite challenging.

She prays for physical healing for herself elsewhere.

This is an excerpt from Leah’s prayer diary, written on the 15th December 2013. Every child or young person that she had met or known about in Bristol is prayed for by name in her prayer diary. She thanked God for the privilege of having met these people. The families of the three children/young people who were in the transplant unit around the same time as Leah and who subsequently died are also prayed for.

Each day in Bristol Leah and I used to read and pray together and she liked me to pray for each patient by name. Sometimes I would forget and leave someone out. At the end of our prayer time Leah would then look at me reproachfully and say “You forgot……” So I would then have to say another wee prayer!

Those were precious times and are precious memories!