grief
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Today, as readers of Wednesday’s post and anyone who pays exceptionally close attention to the dedication in The Ambulance Box will know, is Aidan’s 10th birthday. Although I posted “The Condition” on Wednesday, I could not let the day itself go by unmarked here, so I give you this abnominal for Aidan, which was first published
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The Condition is identified by ultrasound at 38 weeks — less than an echo where there should have been loud celebration. The condition would have you weep aloud in the streets and will cause some people to dash across the road when you approach but has left no breath to cry with. The condition can
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I’ve mentioned SANDS, the stillbirth and neonatal death society, on this blog in the past. SANDS Lothians, which supports those in the Lothians who have suffered a stillbirth or a neonatal death, has been chosen as one of the five finalists in the Netmums competition to receive a share of a £200,000 money pot from Sport Relief but
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One thing I managed to leave out of my post on Cove Park was any mention of just how emotional an experience it was. Several of us, myself included, were in tears at one point or another in the week. This is not surprising, as it was demanded of us that we go deep into
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I’ve mentioned the SANDS UK Why 17? campaign before. It highlights the fact that 17 babies a day are stillborn or die neonatally in the UK and calls for more research to be done into the cause of these deaths. A crucial part of this is the Saving Babies’ Lives report. For obvious reasons, this
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Lullaby this is the arm that held you this is the hand that cradled your cold feet these are the ears that heard you whimper and cough throughout your brush with light this is the chest that warmed you these are the eyes that caught your glimpse of life this is the man you fathered
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Many thanks to Robert Peake for his sensitive and enthusiastic review of The Ambulance Box. As Robert says, he and I share the grief of having lost a newborn son, so his assessment of the book is of particular significance to me. Here’s a taste: Sentimentality and easy words seem as though they might never
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Those of you who’ve followed this blog for a while and anyone who has read the information on the Salt website about The Ambulance Box will know that our first child died very shortly after birth. SANDS Lothians, the Lothians arm of the stillbirth and neonatal death society, was an enormous support to us as
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Got back on Saturday from a much-needed family break in Northumberland, then it was off to St Andrews on Monday for my Inklight reading, stopping off en route in Edinburgh for lunch with fellow HappenStance poet James Wood. With a bit of time to kill between lunch and my train to Leuchars, I popped into
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this is the arm that held youthis is the hand that cradled your cold feet these are the ears that heard youwhimper and cough throughout your brush with light this is the chest that warmed youthese are the eyes that caught your glimpse of life this is the man you fathered—his voided love, his writhen
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There’s an extensive, thoughtful and very positive review of the sampler over at Jim Murdoch’s ever stimulating blog The Truth about Lies. Jim comments on each of the poems in turn, as well as on general aspects of the pamphlet as an object and collection. This is the paragraph that most interests me: As a
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“The joy of the Lord is your strength.” (Nehemiah 8:10) It’s a verse often used in certain quarters, under the rubric of encouragement, to bludgeon the hurting for a failure to demonstrate happiness in pain. No thought given to the harm this misapplication does or what it implies, namely that God is not to be
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I don’t know where Simon Barrow came across this quotation on grief from Rowan Williams, but it’s worth reproducing here: “[G]rief and desperate loneliness aren’t political things but human things. It’s only when we can get to the humanity can we begin to get beyond the sterility of historic racial and religious conflicts. Facing the
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America: the dead People die, but there are no dead in America. The dead are those who are exhumed a year after burial, their bones washed and placed in catacombs or in a special niche in the house, their skulls painted, with jewels set in the eye sockets, their skulls set on spikes around the
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I’ve been meaning to post a link to this marvellous, sensitive article all week. As a bereaved parent, I relate deeply to the experiences that Alice Jolly describes. I can’t recommend her piece highly enough to anyone. If you’ve lost a child, you’ll hear your own voice in her story. If you’ve never been through
Amy Jo Philip 