THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT

(Content warning: loss, grief)

Perhaps I worry too much about my kids.

A few years ago, I wrote a post about my experience of boarding school and the effect it had on my later life and on those close to me. I regard it as one of the most important posts in my blog.

I wrote this:

“I hate the thought that my character, and in particular those attributes of it which make me a Boarding School Survivor have, in some way, caused hurt to the people around me …….  What about the boys?  I’ve loved them and done my best to demonstrate that love. Was that, in some way I don’t understand, not enough?”

My oldest went through some tough times that resulted in him leaving a demanding degree course at university and, having “dropped out” for a while, pursuing his passion for food to train as a chef. Through overcoming those difficulties, helped by some counselling, the love of his super-empathetic girlfriend and (and I’m proud of this) the support of both his parents, he has developed into a remarkable young man. He is empathetic and caring and, though the death of his grandparents and his godfather has hit him hard, he doesn’t struggle to recognise and share those emotions, as I once would have done.

The youngest has always seemed less open, in ways I recognise from my own past. He was bullied at school and, busy parents that we were, I don’t think we really recognised this at the time. I feel bad that we didn’t offer him the support that he would have needed. I have continued to worry about him, and try often to break through and form something like the deep connection I have with his brother. Over the last year I have felt some progress, but continue to be concerned that he was locking things up, most recently the death of my mother, his grandmother. She was important to him when he was growing up, but he has seemed unable to talk about it. I’ve tried to give him the space he seems to need, but still worry for him. I guess it’s my job to do so!

The funeral yesterday passed off as well as could be hoped, for such a sad occasion. It was touching to see my boys and my brother’s girls together. After the funeral itself, they were very much a group, sometimes just the four of them, sometimes a bunch of twenty-somethings chatting with their cousins, aunts, uncles and with Mum and Dad’s lifelong friends.

They disappeared for a while in the middle of the afternoon, but I didn’t go to find them.

I was bowled over and deeply touched when, late in the evening as we drank beer and ate pizza, my oldest told me where they had been. The four of them, having been swapping stories about their Granny in the garden, had returned to the room where the funeral service had been held. They had stood next to the coffin and, together, laid their hands on it and said their own goodbyes to her. They’d done so in their own time, in their own way; away from the more formal religious service that we’d chosen because mum would have wanted it, and away from the older generations and their expectations for how grief should be expressed (“What will you do with the ashes?” an old  lady had asked in the presence of my son).

Just the four of them, quietly standing together, laying their hands on their grandmother’s coffin. In their tears, they had shared their love for her and for each other.

The boys told me this morning that this had been the most meaningful, most important part of the day for them, and it felt right to me that that should be so.

My youngest had been part of that, open to that emotion, happy to share it with his brother and his cousins, fully engaged in the quiet grief and love of that special moment.

Moreover, he was happy to reflect on it with me this morning.

I think he’s going to be OK.