When your child is unwell, your heart aches as you try all you can to take their pain and discomfort away from them. Much preferring to suffer yourself in their place.
As a parent of a child born with special needs and disabilities, you feel like you have been smashed into a million pieces, not knowing where all those pieces have fallen so unable to put yourself together again.
You and your spouse do all you can together to hold those millions of pieces in place, but the missing ones allow your spirit to drain away as if through a sieve and nothing can stop it until you unknowingly fall into despair.
Nobody prepares you for the emotional damage being a parent and a carer will be in the years to come after your child is born and placed, helpless, into your arms. As each year passes and each year you get older and a little less able yourself, the demand on your emotions becomes greater.
My solace comes from walking and working in the garden, but even with our child’s declining health and limited time to do so, that moment of peace has also been taken from me. The moments I do get to go outside, I see the garden dying as if to emphasise the situation we face. Box hedges stand bare as blight ravages the bushes, autumnal leaves fall to the ground like tears, and trees stand bare like skeletons.
As I stand with all hope lost, I wonder how I will regain some resilience to deal with the ongoing demands. Those thoughts are interrupted by the alarm indicating my help is needed. I turn my back on the garden once again and return to the house to face the current trauma …
