The death of a child is indescribable, but support group, Anam Cara, can help parents cope, writes EMMA CULLINAN
KATHLEEN KIRBY says she can’t believe something like Anam Cara wasn’t started long ago. Kathleen’s sons, Dave and Paul, were killed in a road accident in April 2005, when they were 18 and 20 years old. “Long ago, when a child died, you weren’t to mention their name again, but if you don’t deal with it, it will come back. There’s no quick fix; you have to go through grief, you can’t go around it,” she says.
“I still mark their birthdays. I buy flowers for the grave and laminated birthday cards so the rain doesn’t get through.”
The Anam Cara support group for bereaved parents and siblings was started by a group of parents who met at the Barretstown Camp for bereaved families at the end of 2005. There are now meetings all around the country.
Mac McInery and his wife Maria, from Lurgan, were introduced to Anam Cara by Peter Hanlon at Barretstown after their daughter Annabel died at the age of one from a rare cancer in her spine.
“We knew something was wrong when she was 10 months old and she began waking at night, screaming and crying. Then we noticed a neck crick,” says Mac. While doctors were trying to establish what was wrong, Annabel became paralysed, “The only way we could talk to her was through her most wonderful blue eyes,” says her dad. After the cancer was diagnosed, Annabel stayed in hospital and spent her first birthday in intensive care with family and friends around her. She died on September 11th, 2007.
“The grief was a torment and the anger was deadly. It got so that I wanted to lash out at someone even though I’m not like that at all: I felt that someone had to pay. Then someone said there was a wonderful place called Barretstown where bereaved parents and siblings could go for the weekend. My initial reaction was, ‘I don’t want psychobabble’, but Barretstown was the saving of us.”
Then Peter Hanlon, who was leading the weekend, told them about Anam Cara. The first time they went they drove to a meeting in Dublin, although they attend get-togethers closer to home now. “Anam Cara is so relaxed. We met and there was no agenda. You just go in and sit around a table drinking cups of coffee.”
He says that Sharon Vard, one of Anam Cara’s founders, would “just talk and ask people about their stories and listen and it develops from that”. Topics discussed include describing feelings and talking about the grief process. “People will feel that they are going crazy,” says Kathleen. “But it’s all part of grief and we let them know that it is normal.”
People also talk about what happens when the person who died comes into their head. “It is great to be able to talk about things like that,” says Mac. “One of the dads in the group said when that happens you should talk to them and confront it. So I said ‘Annabel, here you are, where did you come from?’ Then I saw my sons Luca and James playing outside and starting a fight, so I said, ‘Annabel, love, your two brothers are acting the eejit, I’m going to put you aside for a minute to deal with them and then I will come back to you.’
“It was such simple, but valuable advice. I got it from a person who knew, a dad who had lost his son.”
Kathleen says: “I talk away to my two in the kitchen. That’s where I feel close to them because that is where we all used to hang out.” She also dreams about her boys, who were killed driving back from a visit to their grandmother just two miles from home.
As a society most of us are not equipped or taught how to deal with other people’s grief. Those who have lost children say that their families and friends can offer valuable practical support but that they can feel that, as Kathleen says, “some people will listen to your story for a while but then expect you to be back to normal”.
It is also tough for brothers and sister of children who have died to talk, but they too gain from spending time with those who have suffered similarly. For this reason Anam Cara’s sibling gatherings aren’t about sitting talking, but playing together – often at the Barretstown Camp with activities such as archery, walks, canoeing and arts.
“Sometimes I like talking about it and sometimes I don’t,” says Ian Burke, 16, whose brother Kieran died in January 2004 at the age of five, from a rare cancer.
“Shared experience is the best therapy I’ve found,” says Mac, who has set up a charity and scholarship in his daughter’s name.
Anam Cara Parental Sibling Bereavement Support, tel: 01-295 8567, mobile 087 2231170; e-mail: s.vard@anamcara.ie ; www.anamcara.ie
