By Keely Blows, whose mum died when Keely was 14, and whose daughter died at 19 days old
Losing your mum as a 14 year old girl feels like the very worst timing. She is your guiding compass, your one certainty at a time when the world is starting to feel unnerving and confusing. And then she is gone. All that you had to steady you is wiped out and no matter who you have around you, you feel totally alone.
You want to be seen as normal. Not the girl whose mum died. So you shut it down. You talk to no one and when that lump in your throat rises, you swallow it. You get on with homework and exams, driving lessons, jobs, relationships, friendships. And when you go out with said friends, and have too much to drink, you find yourself crying and can’t find the words for why.
Losing a parent when you’re young can leave you with an unspoken sense of security. You look around at those you know and wonder who’s next? Your big bad has happened. But then you are told your newborn baby daughter is going to die and you realise how wrong you are. That grief and loss do not follow a straight line. Eventually, mostly, you also understand it isn’t something you have brought on yourself. It’s not a life you have subconsciously invited in. Shit happens and shit can happen again. That is both terrifying and freeing and is always at the back of your mind.
Losing anyone you love is life changing. But losing your child is on a different level. Of course there is the pain of what you yourself have lost. But, above all else, is the pain of what your child has lost. A life denied, but one that you had vowed to treasure above your own. You never stop worrying or wondering or hoping that someone has somehow stepped up for her in your absence.
There is a connection between these losses that is hard to quantify. As a bereaved daughter you long for your mum and as a bereaved mum you long for your daughter and you can’t help but connect the two. That they are somehow intertwined and no more so than when I was on my knees in grief after my daughter and all I could cry out was...I need my mum. Almost 20 years after she had gone from my world. I now talk freely about them both, having learnt that for me, silence was a lonelier place. It keeps them forever in my present and alive in my heart.
About Keely Blows
”My name is Keely Blows, I am a mum to 3 children (2 earth side) and a personal banker from Herts. My own mum died of breast cancer when she was 35 and I was 14. My daughter Tallulah was born in 2013 but had suffered irreversible brain damage at the time around her birth. She died in our arms at a children’s hospice when she was 19 days old.”
