This is Rachel’s Story

Rachel’s daughter Iris died just before her 3rd birthday, on July 25, 2007

Losing Iris has challenged everything I thought I knew about myself and my beliefs about the world. I thought that ‘these sorts of things’ happened to ‘other’ people and maybe I naively thought that trying to live consciously, gently and with heart somehow protected me from such extreme tragedy. Of course, I have done a lot of reflecting, questioning, ruminating over the past five months. I have spoken to many good people about death and Iris’s death in particular. There is no answer to the question of how she died; and there is no satisfactory answer to the question of why she died. The only answer that speaks in any meaningful way to these questions is that ‘death is just part of life’. This, I think, is the most frightening, and yet liberating, truth I am learning to embrace.

I had an epiphany of sorts a few weeks ago as I walked, tears streaming down my face, along the riverbank with Hugo in the pram and two dogs by my side. I was ruminating on the hundreds of times I had done the same walk with Iris, pointing out birds, koalas and funny looking dogs, or explaining to her about shadows, or the wind, or clouds. Then I remembered Hugo and how he needed just the same from me. That moment started me thinking about love and about how it is truly an act of love to continue on living and living well after one has lost love in such a sudden and tragic way. Until that point, I had been rendered quite powerless in the face of death and the looming path of grief that lies ahead for me. However, I have started to feel occasional moments of peace since embracing this idea.

The following Michael Leunig poem speaks well of such things:

There are only two feelings.

Love and fear.

There are only two languages. Love and fear.

There are only two activities. Love and fear.

There are only two motives, two procedures,

Two frameworks, two results. Love and fear.

Love and fear.

Living in love, not fear, means embracing the deep grief I feel and understanding it as a continuation of the deep love I shared with Iris. Living in love means keeping my heart open to Hugo, Rob and my step-daughter, Eliza, and not pushing them away or smothering them, out of fear of losing them.

Reference: Same, D. & Bereaved Parents & Red Nose Grief and Loss Services. (2016). Your Child has Died: Some Answers To Your Questions: A Booklet for Bereaved Parents whose Young Child has Died Suddenly and Unexpectedly. Malvern, Vic.: Red Nose Grief and Loss Services.