Parenting without my parents.

Stephanie Solley - 5 Oct 17

They’ve both gone, Mum & Dad. Both dead. Mum passed 6 months after I had my first baby, Dad 16 months after my second. What rotten luck. The Big C. I’m 35 and feel very young for this to happen to me, but there’s not just me there’s my sister and she’s 10 years older than me, her children are older, they’ve had more time with there grandparents mine hardly have any, I feel jealous of that. There’s my brother too, older, silent, a wall.

So how do you parent without your parents? Who do I call, turn too, rely on? Well there’s the in-laws but its not the same, you know… plus they live 300 miles away.

There’s the endless practical questions. The children have got chickenpox-have I had it, or am I going to get it? When did I get my first tooth? What age did I walk? All those questions- you want to compare yourself to your child to see if he’s like you, I don’t know the answers, I never got the chance to ask.

There’s the emotional void too, some days I think “yep I was a pretty great Mum today”. The next day I can barely manage to do the school run without crying. Ah depression I hear you say? Did I talk to anyone? Did I see a doctor? Truth be told I couldn’t, I didn’t and still can’t talk without sobbing.  I buried the feelings after Mum died and put on a brave face. I had a 6 month old baby to look after, all smiles, wow she’s doing so well. And then after Dad died, it all came flooding back and hit me like a ton of bricks. It floored me.

I’ve Googled therapy, grief counselling, post traumatic stress disorder, delayed grief but I find myself coming back to anxiety. Anxiety, yep that’s it, I’m now an anxious person, I’m no longer carefree. I couldn’t control what happened and now I worry – is it going to happen to me too this cancer?

I lie in panic some nights thinking about my death, what would happen to the boys, does my husband know what we say to each other every single night before they fall asleep, that we have disco showers every Friday night, does he know what music I would want at my funeral? I haven’t written the boys a letter yet to read when they’re old enough. Mum wrote me a card when she was dying, it was incomprehensible, her cancer was in her brain at this point. I want to make sure my boys have something to read that is coherent. Not something that will fill me with sadness each time I read it…But actually, let’s take a step back, I want to give my boys a good life, not just a letter.

Stop worrying I tell myself your not going anywhere, yet. Stop being so anxious.

I’ve wanted to write about this – my loss for some time but each time I do, I stop as I can’t see the keyboard for the tears. I start, cry, stop, start again. Turn it off for a while. I imagine, isn’t this what therapy would be like? Me just paying someone to watch me cry?

So why am I writing, why did I finally do it? Well I guess I’m having a “good day” yes I’m here, still standing. I have days where I’m immensely sad but generally, I’m ok, actually better than ok, really genuinely happy days.

My children without knowing have pulled me through this. They’ve kept me busy, taken my mind off of it, made me laugh through the tears, but mainly they show me that life does go on, quite literally they are the new life that has only just begun and I simply cannot fail them.

Stephanie Solley

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