Foreword
Standing on the upper lawn, though late morning, I feel like I have just woken up. Awakened from a long slumber, from which my recollections are of constant nightmares. I look around me, the lawn is stained from our dog Bronte’s peeing, which I had not treated or diluted immediately. Yellowed areas are dotted all around, and in some cases, the grass has died back altogether. Lawn edges are no longer clipped and trimmed but escaping, inch by inch, creeping over the flagged, gravelled or brick paths. I see plants and shrubs waiting patiently, anticipating the care I once gave them, and may do again. Nature’s rewilding has already taken over other areas of the garden in my line of sight. The bugs and the beasties welcoming my neglect.
I look down at my feet and see the outline of the wooden steps. I have paid no attention to the sleepers that have weathered and cracked over time. The gravel path I had laid where these steps lead to is now covered in weeds, and there is only a faint indentation to suggest there was once an accessible pathway there.
Why have I been so neglectful? Where have I been? What has suddenly awakened my senses from this dark, nightmarish place? Our garden was once my pride and joy and the basis of so much help and support for our son. The many days we spent out here, in mindful activities, calming his fears and easing his pain. His anxiety and pain that I somehow feel have transferred to me. I have been lacking the confidence and resilience that I once had, and I reflect on the impact of the pandemic and the lockdown that we and everyone else had to endure. Locked away in our homes, even the garden had felt like it had become a prison to me.
During the pandemic, there was an intense need to support our son through it, helping him to adapt to staying at home and not engaging in those small adventures that were routine for him and essential for his well-being. Although restrictions have been lifted, Marc’s reluctance to step outside due to his newly accepted routine of staying at home has taken its toll on me. He cannot be left unattended for a minute. Such is his battle with epilepsy. If I venture into the garden, he has to accompany me so I can constantly watch over him and encourage him to get involved with me whenever possible. His resistance to stepping over the threshold means that we stay indoors.
Day after day, a crow sat on the fence, just watching. Its eyes seemingly penetrating my soul, freezing the lifeblood pumping through my heart. Unafraid as I approached it, the crow remained unmoving, just staring. Memories, none of them good, of the crow’s mystical associations with doom flooded my thoughts. This crow appeared to be taking me on a journey into darkness—down a long, damp passage without light. Without hope.
Unwanted thoughts of regret course through my mind. I am grieving for something I do not have. I do not have the right to grieve. Do I?
Over many long weeks and months, watching my son writhe in tormented pain, from his relentless seizures, unable to help him other than to hold him. I hoped that I was comforting him at times, if only by my presence, but suffering a father’s regret of not being able to do anything tangible to release him from his burden. Each day, several times a day, he needs more and more support. My life seems to involve nothing more than forever kneeling at my son’s side, trying desperately to bring him comfort. His seizures cause him to strike out. He strikes me, claws me, and knows nothing about what he is doing.
I take a short respite from Marc’s care and walk into our neglected garden. The crow sits as it always does, watching and chilling me to my core as it stares, as if waiting for a dying soul. My dying soul. This is relentless. My journey down into this dark place has gripped me, sucking all optimism out of me. Was this what fatherhood should be like? Why was I not blessed with the son we had thought we would have? Would I regain any happiness in my life? The darkness increased, and all hope was now completely drained. Shut off from the world as we were, I withdrew into my dark thoughts. I deal only with the essential needs of care for our son. Cradling him through his fitting, cleaning him following his incontinence, talking or singing to comfort him. I am not eating correctly, not seeing anything positive in life, but praying for a permanent end to this feeling.
However, while crows can represent death, danger, misfortune, and illness, they also symbolise rebirth, self-reflection, intelligence, and loyalty. As such, they can be both bad omens and, conversely, good omens. My mind was in such a dark place that I assumed Hades had sent the crow to pick over my carcass after watching, with a touch of humour, my suffering.
I have now realised that this crow signalled a change in our son’s health. He will remain seriously unwell, which is inevitable, but the dark place he was in appears to have changed, too, and gradually, a smile has been returning to his face.
I feel guilty now that I was feeling so low. In all the years since we were blessed with the arrival of our boy, I have never felt this bad. We are told by experts it is okay to feel this way. It does not feel okay, but is it wrong? Mental Health have become buzzwords in today’s world, but they are not just words, and the pain attached to it is very, very real.
Slowly, as the invisible pendulum swings in the opposite direction, our son’s health stabilises again, we gain a more optimistic outlook.
As I stand in our garden today, I recognise that I have been blessed with some kind of reawakening. As I look around our wasted garden, I grieve for its former beauty—the colour, the scent, the calming movement, and the birdsong. Today starts its rebuilding, and once again, I will use what I do and create to aid our son’s well-being. And my own.
(Provisional extract from ‘Beyond the Garden’. Volume Two of the, Marc’s Window memoir series. Continuing the journey started in ‘Marc’s Garden’ which was published on 8th May 2025)
