Children's Grief Awareness Day 2019

Hello my lovely readers

This post is perhaps earlier than expected. It is neither December, nor the start of my Seasonal Sonnets series, and it isn't the beginning of my poem a day project.

It is, however, a poem. Today is the global Children's Grief Awareness Day, and the end of Children's Grief Awareness Week in the UK. The theme this year is 'Lost for words'. That struck a chord with me. Not only did I find it difficult to talk about my grief growing up, but I used poetry as a private and more abstract outlet. And those of you who have been reading this blog a while might remember how scared I was when that coping mechanism, which I've used since I was very young, seemed to disappear entirely in the summer of 2017. Along with all other creative writing forms.

But, thanks to a combination of factors, from therapy sessions to the support of the bereavement buddies I've met through groups like Let's Talk About Loss and The Grief Network, my young adult self is finally getting brave enough to process my experiences properly. And, with that talking, my writing seems to have reappeared as well. So I wrote this poem last week, in honour of my child selves, and in solidarity with kids who are going through grief. I'm rather terrified about posting, but if it helps one other child (or adult), then it's worth it. Please know you aren't alone, and your feelings are okay and allowed.

Here, shared with love, is my perspective:

This is a note for little me

in plural; who wrote poetry,

at ten, eleven, twelve, fourteen,

and all the ages after then.

We wrote to cope in 2001

when Gemma, first, was suddenly gone

and kept it up throughout our teens

‘til five in a year made seventeen.

It was easier to write than talk

for otherwise our brains would baulk

and shout the screams inside our heads

when yet another friend was dead.

But, with five almost at once,

we could not find the write response

nor could we find the words to say

and so our minds were shut away.

I felt lost for what to do

but now I know that’s okay too.

Sometimes words just won’t describe

the feelings that we hold inside.

And sometimes, though aged twenty-seven,

we need rhymes that sound like we’re eleven

or younger even, perhaps ten,

since that’s the age we ‘lost’ dear Gem.

And that’s the age I revert to,

when there’s the news of someone new,

transported, body, mind and soul;

fresh grief reminds me I’m not whole.

And then I’m sliced in two once more

as teenage me lets out a roar;

an ever present adolescent,

lip wobbling after younger precedent.

These foundations were what built my twenties

as the numbers grew aplenty

and piled up the paradox

that, needing them, my words were lost.

My mind became not one but many:

I had no proper hold on any.

But, though I have felt split apart,

my nearly thirty-year-old heart

is learning to connect the halves

that make up all my little selves.

Voicing, together, that we grieve,

we’re finding some mutual relief.

Tasks of talking through our pain

have sparked our writing up again.

Though I still reel from the hurt,

I’m glad to put it into words.