For Better or For Worse

Marriage vows. How many people have trotted out the words in front of family and friends and never expected that the ‘worse’ bit would become the dominant part of their married lives? We certainly did. Every marriage or partnership has its stresses and strains. Money worries, extended families, job hassles, health problems, kids. They all add up to a mix of problems that apply tension over time. It’s normal and all things being equal, we breeze through it. Sadly, some marriages don’t survive these tensions. Some go on for ever.

On 11 January 2018, Pats and I were with Evie at the moment of her death. In that moment we became a couple again, not a family, and our grieving began. Over the next two years, 4 months and 9 days, what became massively apparent was that we have grieved in completely different ways. We each built walls to protect ourselves from further pain. We each faced the trauma alone for a long time, unable to help the other. We would each have given the earth to help the other, but simply didn’t know how. Moreover, we probably didn’t have the energy or mental capacity to help either. The stress has been incredible. Evie’s death did incomprehensible damage to both of our mental states. The strain that it brought was something that we were both unprepared for. We have known each other since we were 12 years old, we got engaged when we were 18. But I have seen parts of Patsy’s character that I have never seen before, both good and not so good. The pain in the house was enormous. But …….

Evie’s death tested us and our relationship to its core. There is nothing else in this world that could place more strain on it. We’re still here. Together. It has brought everything else into stark relief. Everything else, and I mean everything else, is trivia. Looking around us at what is happening, it would be easy to be swept up in it all. But you know what? It simply isn’t important. Like everyone else, we worry that our jobs might not be secure. We worry that one or both of us could catch Covid-19 and be hospitalised. We can’t go on holiday. We can’t be with friends and family. Life’s normal stresses and strains continue. So what? The tension of all of these things is fleeting; it will pass. Evie’s death won’t pass. It will never leave us. The pain will never subside. I can see Evie’s last breath as clearly today as I did then.

We have survived watching our wonderful, beautiful girl’s death. We have survived because although we cannot help each other, we understand each other. And all the other crap is just that - crap. It doesn’t matter, so there is no point getting worked up about it. In the 26 and a bit months since Evie died we have learned one thing - perspective. There’s no point wasting energy on things that you can’t influence. Why get upset about something that will be forgotten in a few days? As one of our previous employers learned (expensively), watching your child die is the very worst thing that can happen to you, and there is NOTHING that you can do to us that we can’t ride out together. Nothing compares to seeing your child die. Live through that and you can live through everything else. Our little family was a perfect three-legged stool. One of the legs has gone, but somehow, the stool is still upright - balancing. For better or for worse. We are a family.