The only way to make a new road is to walk it.

Sometimes the truth appears in unexpected places. I’d love to be able to take the credit for the quote used in the title of this piece, but it is lifted from an episode of Star Trek: Discovery. That said, it is, I feel, entirely relevant.

The death of a child is so cataclysmic to our lives that the paths - or roads - that we have set ourselves no longer exist. Our previous choices, our futures, have all gone. Everything beyond the present is unknown, even our own needs and desires are blank. There are a hundred and one ways of describing it from living in a fog to being blindfolded, but the result is the same. We can see or predict nothing because everything that we had prepared ourselves for has changed. Our purpose has changed. Our futures have disappeared. What do we do with our lives now? We need to make a new road.

Because so much has changed and so much is unknown, setting a new destination for ourselves is impossible. We live from day to day, sometimes from hour to hour. So often we are asked “how do you manage?” and our response is “Because I have no choice.”. And that is how we build a new road. We get up, go through our day, go to bed and do it all again.

Most people get a destination or life goal and then make a road that leads to it, be it qualifications, promotions, new homes or children. When your child has died you make your road by surviving each day. You make the road by looking back at the road as it has grown. It lacks direction and meanders about but it is a road nonetheless; a road of survival. It is like no other road and is personal to us. There will be times when it drifts off in the wrong direction (if there is such a thing) and others when it slows or stops altogether. It doesn’t matter. The new road is growing and each day or year gets a little easier to build.

One day a time may come when we can look ahead a little and set a destination for the road to take. But if we don’t then the road will keep growing slowly, taking whatever form and direction that works best for us. Others won’t understand the road, nor its lack of direction. They will try and convince us to set a destination but we don’t need one. What we need is to build our road our way in our own time. And we will do that by walking it every day. You may not realise it, but you are already building your road. It may take a while, but that’s okay because there isn’t a rush.

One day I will be with Evie again and my road will be complete.