Tuesday 8 July 2014

From the minute we are born we start learning about the world around us. Throughout our lives we are constantly finding out new things and experiencing different emotions. We learn from all the people around us and everyone we come into contact.
Initially we are learning from our parents and family, we find out how we fit into the family and how we communicate with each other. We then move on as we get older to learning from the community around us and the wider world.

We learn things from how to talk, walk, eat, and interact with others. As we get older we move on to learning formal lessons like Literacy, Numeracy, History and Geography.
As we move into adulthood we learn from our peers how we fit into society and we become active members of the working world.

We are constantly finding out about different emotions and how we should react to different situations. There are still some stereotypical behaviours we are taught e.g. boys should be tough and not show their emotions  where as girls are supposed to be more open about their feelings.
We come to expect that we will have to deal with the death of loved ones but we also expect that these loved ones will be much older than ourselves and that whilst sad we will eventually feel that it is the natural way of life.

Throughout my life I have had to deal with a lot of loss of both relatives and friends and I have always been effected by each one. There are still some that continue to effect me everyday and influence how I live my life and the decisions I make.
 The loss I have found the hardest to rationalise is the loss of my grandson, Charlie Arthur Curtis. He shared his life with us for just 19 minutes and was then cruelly taken away from us. I still do not understand how someone so pure and innocent can be taken away at such a young age. When an adult dies you can think that at least they had a life, they got to experience life. How can anyone argue that it is fair for a baby or child to be taken away from its family. They didn't get to share their lives and go through normal family things.

Growing up I saw how others dealt with the death of other adults and that is how we learn to grieve and mourn our loved ones.  We see it in TV  programmes and films and we learn what is expected reactions to death.  No one ever tells you how to deal with and live with the death of a baby/child. No one prepares you for how to support your child as they go through the worst experience in their life. And in our experience no one is there to support you after the death to help you work out how to live through this.

The death of a child is still quite a taboo subject and people are often scared of talking about it, usually because they are worried of saying the wrong thing. To make it less of a taboo it needs to be talked about more and it needs to be talked about from a younger age. Children also get effected by the loss of a child and we need to let them talk about it and get out their feelings.

Our hope is for a safe, comfortable, friendly place where anyone can visit and talk freely and openly about their loved ones. We want people to feel that there is someone out there that wants to listen and support them. This is how it should be, there should always be someone out there that you can turn to when life feels bleak.






No comments:

Post a Comment

Charlies-Angel-Centre.org.uk