Episode 23 Transcript:

For Dads By Dads

[00:00:00] In this special collaboration episode for dads by dads, we wanted to recognize and offer support for bereaved dads of any circumstance. We will hear from dads who have lost a baby, a child, a young person, and an adult child. We understand that each loss is unique, but the difficulties and challenges you may be navigating right now might be similar.

We hope by hearing from different dads, it brings you some connection, support, and recognition of the devastating loss you are going through. It is important to recognize that we need resources and support for dads. Some of the dads who have participated have used various support organizations they have found useful to them, who will share the links to these in our episode listing.[00:01:00] 

Please be aware that the content in this episode will touch on subjects of loss, death, suicide, spiritualism, and hope. The transcript for the episode will be on our website episode listing. If you are unsure if this is right for you at this stage of your loss journey, please take a look and see the content covered.

As we are approaching Father’s Day this year, we want to extend our love and support to all bereaved dads. You will always be their dad.

My name is Raj, and I’m dad to my son, Riaan. Father’s Day can be a, a complicated day when your child isn’t here physically. For many people, it’s a, a day of celebration. But for bereaved dads, it can also bring sadness, longing, and reflection. And [00:02:00] over time, I’ve learnt that all of those feelings can exist together.

When I think about Riaan, I don’t just think about the loss. I think about the love. I think about how becoming his dad changed me forever. And even though our time together was far shorter than I could ever have imagined, the impact that he has had on my life is immeasurable. He, he made me a father, and that’s something no one could ever take away.

One of the ways I keep a connection with Riaan is by continuing to speak his name. I never want him to become a secret or, or something that people are afraid to mention. He’s my son, and, and he deserves to re- to be remembered. Every time I say his name, tell his story, or share a memory, I feel that connection.

It’s a reminder that love doesn’t end when someone dies. It, it changes, but it doesn’t disappear [00:03:00] Being part of Sands United has also become a huge part of how I honor him. When I first met other bereaved dads, I realized something I hadn’t fully understood before, and that is that there are people who, who truly get it, people who don’t need explanations, people who understand that you can be laughing one minute and, and missing your child desperately the next.

And through football, through conversations, and simply being around one another, I found a place where Rihanna is remembered and where I can be both a dad and a bereaved dad without having to choose between the two. And if I’m honest, the, the early days after losing Riaan are, are a blur. I remember feeling like the world kept moving while ours had completely stopped.

People went back to work, carried on with their routines, celebrated birthdays and other milestones whilst we were trying to understand [00:04:00] how life could continue after, after such a, a devastating loss. And as dads, there can be an expectation that we’re the strong one, the ones who keep going. I definitely felt that pressure.

I wanted to protect the people around me, and sometimes that meant pushing my own feelings down. Looking back, one of the most important things I learned is that strength isn’t about hiding your grief. Real strength is allowing yourself to, to feel it. And there were days when, when I felt angry, days when I felt broken, days when I felt guilty for smiling, days when I wondered whether anyone would, would really understand.

But I always feel close to Riaan. I always feel pride in being his dad and grateful for the love that he brought into my life. Grief isn’t just one emotion, it’s a combination of so many. So to any dad listening who’s in those first few weeks or months after losing a baby, I want you to know that you’re not alone.[00:05:00] 

You may feel isolated. You may feel like nobody around you understands. You may feel pressure to hold everything together, but you don’t have to carry it all by yourself. Reach out, talk. Find other dads who have walked this path, whether that’s through Sands, family, friends, or other support groups. Let people walk alongside you.

And don’t measure your grief against anyone else’s. There’s no right way to do this. Some days you might wanna talk about your baby constantly. Other days, you might not be able to speak at all, and both are okay. Some days you’ll feel strong, and some days just getting out of bed will feel like an achievement, and that’s okay too One thing I wish I had known earlier is that grief doesn’t get smaller because your child becomes less important.

The reason grief feels so heavy is because love is so deep, and the pain that we carry is, is a reflection of the love that we have for our children. And while the [00:06:00] grief changes shape over time, that love remains. Today, I still miss Riaan. I always will. There are moments where I wonder who he would have been, what he would have enjoyed, what his laugh would sound like, and what memories we would have made together.

And those thoughts can be painful, but they’re also precious because they remind me that he matters and that he’s loved. Father’s Day reminds me that being a father isn’t defined by how much time you had with your child. It’s defined by love. And I’m Riaan’s dad today, tomorrow, and always. So this Father’s Day, I want to, to say Riaan’s name with pride.

I want to thank him for making me a father and for teaching me more about love than I ever thought possible. And to every bereaved dad listening, your baby matters. Your story matters. Your love matters. You are a dad, and you always will be. Today, I’m remembering my son, Riaan, [00:07:00] and I’m standing alongside every father carrying the memory of a child they love and miss.

Happy Father’s Day to all of us. 

Uh, my name is David, and I lost my son, Sam, seven years ago. Uh, Sam was a disabled young man, but one of the most important things that he used to enjoy particularly was music. And we used to take him to many a concert all over in Manchester, which he thoroughly enjoyed.

And I find, and have found since I lost Sam, that listening to music that we enjoyed together has been a very strong connection. Um, so I have a playlist and songs that I play that always remind me of hi– of Sam and how much he enjoyed music. Um, the highlight of the year for me was that I used to take Sam to the Green Man Festival, uh, which is a [00:08:00] festival in mid-Wales, and we used to go in the campervan.

And seeing his enjoyment of the music was fantastic, but what was even better was seeing how a little disabled chap in a wheelchair’s enjoyment of the music and turning around and seeing them, uh, enjoying how much he enjoyed it was fantastic. So I find that music is something that enables me to continue to, uh, remember very good times, uh, with Sam.

And there are many, many songs that we have that have a particular resonance for me in regards to Sam. Now, I know Tracy wanted to ask about how I found things in the first, uh, few months. Um, that was obviously very difficult. Um, I think particularly for me personally, because I spent a lot of time with Sam, [00:09:00] um, we, um, I used to do a lot of activities with him, particularly in, uh, a weekly routine that we had of going into the local town where Sam was a volunteer at the local library, and where we had a little job putting the books away, and then we used to go for lunch at, uh, at the café where Sam was well-known.

I think, uh, the first few months afterwards, I particularly missed that and missed the connection that it enabled me to have with that, so I really missed that. Hello everybody. 

My name is Ronak Halani. Uh, I’m trustee of, uh, Jak’s World Charity. It’s spelled as J-A-K apostrophe S World Charity. It’s a suicide prevention charity based in Huddersfield, and we established this charity in memory of my son, Jak, Jakub.[00:10:00] 

He passed away in 2023, uh, of suicide, and I’m his stepdad. I raised him. I met him when he was two. And there is a question here. It says: As a bereaved dad, what connects you to your child now? So I will try to answer that and see if you can relate to that. I feel like, um, it’s his memories. It’s his, um– I remember specific incidences, specific cases when we talked, we connected.

Most cherished memories in my mind are when he was younger, when we had lots of times together. But as you know, as kids grow up, they, they drift apart a little bit, or they don’t spend [00:11:00] as much time with their dad or with their parents in general, which is fine, but, uh, even when he became a teenager, so his memories are like, um, when we practiced driving together, um, when we laughed, uh, on certain things together And the way he passed, it has left a bit of a trauma for, for life in, in my mind.

There are so many guilts, regrets, uh, that we could have done this, we could have done that to prevent what happened. But, uh, I try to, to overcome all those negative feelings by remembering the cherished and positive and happy memories and things that, uh, we did do together, uh, we did achieve together, [00:12:00] and we are, we are good for that.

So, um, two main feelings come in mind, uh, are pride and gratitude. So, so I’m incredibly proud of him for what he achieved in his life. In his very short life, he, he did so much, not only for himself, but to help other people as well. He collaborated. He was a true gentleman, and I’m, I’m forever proud of everything that he did.

And gratitude for, for, for him being with us for 19 years. I feel like he visited us, and now he has left I’m thankful for him. I’m thankful to the community that supported us, uh, after he left us. And, uh, I’m generally grateful for, for, uh, this life that he has taught us a lesson, and now we have to [00:13:00] learn something about it.

We have to learn about suicide and suicide prevention, and then we have to spread the, the knowledge that we have gained, remove the stigma around suicide, let people talk, let people connect with us or with anybody else, share what they feel and, and come out of those negative feelings that people might be having.

So I think, uh, this experience and then Jak’s visit for 19 years in our life has, uh, has left that legacy. That is, you know, that if people are kind to each other, people talk to each other, and people open up about their feelings a bit more, we can make a world much more safer place. Another thing is sometimes I feel like being a stepdad, um, there is always [00:14:00] that additional guilt as to whether I did enough, whether I loved him enough, whether I, I was able to, you know, maybe, um, give him that love that the biological parent supposedly can give to their children.

Um, so there is that judgment in my mind always there. And it’s like, you know, I learned after his passing that it’s something called, um, disenfranchised, uh, feelings. So, um, to all stepdads out there, I would like to share that, you know, um You are doing your best. You are human. Um, your child is another human, and human and human, not all of them connect.

But as long as your intentions are clear and your intentions are good, even [00:15:00] more or less any sort of connection with the child, um, it’s worth it. It’s very rewarding. It’s, uh, it’s very pride-inducing, and it is making you a better person and, and, uh, making the child a better person. And lastly, there is a question about, um, would you like to share any advice on what helped me get through those first few months?

So this is for newly bereaved parents or dads experiencing loss. What am I to say? I, I, I agree with everything you feel. I agree with every feelings, positives and negative, guilt, regret, what-ifs, wishful thinking, all those things that you might be experiencing. Um, these are normal. These are part of it, and, and accept it, acknowledge [00:16:00] it.

But try to, um, keep the memory of your child in a positive way. Try to overlook the feelings of guilt, regrets, anger, resentment. I mean, there is a balance between both types of feelings. But if you would like to also see the positive feelings and, uh, uh, observe as if your child visited you for a few years and now they are no longer.

And it also helps me to look out and zoom out a little bit, see that everybody has to come and go. So it’s, it’s the deed and it’s the actions that we do counts. Don’t feel you are, uh, ever alone. There is always support available. Um, people like me are here to share your [00:17:00] experience, listen to yourselves and, uh, you know, compassionately support you If there is anything we can do as a charity or I can do as a person, please reach out to us, reach out to me, and, and I’ll be there with you every step of the way.

Another thing I learned is, it may be too early for you to listen this about, you know, bereavement and having lost child, but I will put it out there, s- that, you know, grief is like, like a core of onion. And as the life goes on, um, the grief doesn’t go away. Your personality and your life will always have that grief and loss.

But as the time passes, you build new layers on that grief, just like [00:18:00] layers on onion. You build more and more layers, more and more memories. And as the time passes, that core becomes something something like literally like you are cuddling and you are keeping very close to your heart. Um, and whenever that memory comes back in future, it will not make you as sad or as suicidal or as, uh, guilty or as, uh, resentful or angry or anything like that.

When that feeling will come back, you will have that warm and fuzzy feeling about the memory of your child, and you will. If you close the eyes, you will feel closer to your child at that time. So it gets bearable. So please carry [00:19:00] on building more and more layers of experiences, um, in your life. Um, so I try to explain.

I’m not an expert or anything, but, uh, I try to explain my thought process. I hope it relates to somebody and helps out somebody. Take care. Thank you. 

Simon Edward’s father of George. What connects me to, to George is, is all the happy memories we have of the time spent away, maybe Chester, York, going away on short holidays or going abroad to Corfu.

In fact, he was also a, a mascot for, player escort for Man City, which was fantastic. Even though he wasn’t a massive football fan, he realized that was a major event and he loved it, and he thoroughly enjoyed it, and he realized it was a major event in his life and said it was a really, really memorable thing to do.

Tell others who are [00:20:00] struggling, I think it’s, it’s hold– you hold on to the memories that you have of them. Um, remember the good times. I look at pictures now and I still get sad and upset, but also happy times as well, and it, it’s good to, to hold on to that and just remember the, the good times that you, that you had with each other.

Hello. Uh, my name is David Higson. I lost my only adult son, Martin David Higson, to suicide on the twenty-third of June, two thousand and eighteen. Basically, what connects me to my son now is something that I was very lucky to discover possibly about four months after he’d died. As a person who didn’t believe in a life after physical death, I was astonished to find out that my son found a way to [00:21:00] reach out from wherever he was to make contact with me in ways which I didn’t understand, to reassure me that he was still around.

The story’s quite long how he did that, but basically about four months after he died, I would be searching for him in places where we used to go to, places where I had memories of us together, where I live on the Isle of Man, and I’d be looking for him ’cause I couldn’t accept that he’d gone completely.

I was just searching for the essence of him in these places and trying to discover where he was. Anyway, I basically ended up going to a spiritualist church, and, um, he… On the second visit that I went there, he came to me through a medium. He was on a platform. This is something that I didn’t really understand nor believe in, [00:22:00] but, um, he persuaded me that he was still around and that, uh, the connection hadn’t, uh, completely died with his physical body.

And so that began the journey, um, for me to, uh, discover and, uh, explore that side of the spiritual, um, side of life. And, um, I started to learn about mediumship and how the spirit can survive physical death. During that time in meditations, I asked him to show me a sign that he was still around. Basically, he did that for me and, um, ever since, it’s just approaching eight years now, um, he’s been around me on a daily basis, basically.

He turns up when we’re thinking about him. I feel his presence when we’re talking about [00:23:00] him. When we have family gatherings, when we have laughs about memories we had together, he shows me that he’s still around in a spiritual way. So for me, the most wonderful connection, uh, that we, we can have And it’s just changed the, changed my life in, in such a amazing way Without that connection, without finding that he was still around, I don’t know if I would’ve survived his suicide.

I, I don’t think I could’ve coped not, uh, carrying on with life knowing that there wasn’t something else. I don’t admit to having all the answers to what happened or shall I say how the spiritual side of things work out. I’m, I’m not professing any religion. I’m not trying to convert anybody. I just know that I have a very, very special relationship with my son, [00:24:00] and he’s involved in my life still, even though physically he’s not.

Um, I believe that he’s, he is around us, the family and me, and, uh, that is so magical and, uh, it gives me hope that, um, every day as I live my life, every day is a day closer to, uh, being with him again in a, in another dimension, in another way. I hope that helps. I think one of the memories that I hold dear was Martin.

Martin was 30 when he died, and he just had a son, Miles, who was in… living in America where Martin was. And, um, he came to visit us and brought Miles for the first time to the Isle of Man. And those… That was two months before he took his own life. So yeah, that was two months before he took his life. So those memories of him introducing Miles to his [00:25:00] grandparents, uh, being our first grandchild, uh, was lovely.

Even though he was ill and I could see that he was ill, the memories that we had together were very precious and along with all the memories of childhood and Martin had a great sense of humor, so, um, and he had a cracking distinctive laugh, uh, which always used to get people laughing along with him. So we, we had some good laughs over the years.

So his, his laughter or the type of laugh that he had was quite infectious. It’s a nice memory. Yeah, he’s still dearly loved. I think grief by suicide is so unique and, um, so hard and difficult at times, and especially in the early stages, it’s like an absolute atom bomb going off in your life. It turns everything upside down and it’s very difficult to cope, uh, with the devastation you feel, the loss, the hurt, the pain, [00:26:00] just incredibly immense.

I think it’s important in the early stages of, of that grief to try and give yourself a, a, what I call a grief break. Um, basically when you wake up in the morning, it’s the first thing on your mind. When you go to bed at night, it’s the last thing on your mind. You can’t eat can’t focus, and it’s so overwhelming.

It just takes over your, your daily life in the early stages that you can’t think about anything else. It’s just massive. I think it’s important that you try and switch off from, from the grief if you can. Uh, I used to do it by doing artwork and focusing on something that took up the whole of my brain power, just to give myself, um, space just to stop thinking about the loss of Martin through suicide, just give myself a rest.

Um, help, helped me cope with, with the loss. I think it’s important to speak to us who have been through a similar experience, somebody that you can trust and, and open up [00:27:00] to and talk to and ask advice about what’s going on, and about all the, the thoughts and feelings that you have after the loss. If you can do that or connect with a local group wherever you’re living.

I think it’s important to express, um, how you’re feeling. Um, this can change obviously minute by minute, hour by hour. It’s important to be kind to yourself. Don’t beat yourself up about what’s happened. Try not to blame yourself for

anything, and the what-ifs, and the what if I hadn’t done that or… I think it’s important not to try and run away from your grief, and when, when the feelings come, work through it. Don’t try and block it. Don’t try and run away from it. Just feel it when it arise, and hopefully it will ease off for you and become less intense.

I think it was important for me to connect with nature, to get out, to walk, to swim in the sea, um, to [00:28:00] watch the birds, to hug a tree. I laugh about it now. These are kind of things I would never have thought about before. But as, as I said before, your life completely changes when you lose somebody, your son to suicide, and the way you look at life, it’s so different.

I think the final thing I wanna say just before I go off is grief has s- taken your, your child, or suicide’s taken your child, but don’t let it steal your life too. Don’t let suicide rob you of everything, and don’t let grief rob you of everything, ’cause this is your life too. Thank you. 

Ever since Poppy and Dottie come into the world silently back in 2019, everything I’ve done has been in their memory and to build the legacy that they never got to make.

Over the last seven years, I’ve run marathons, half marathons, and completed other challenges, and I’ve always carried the girls’ names on me, on my T-shirt, on my running [00:29:00] trainers. They’ve helped me get through the toughest of times. They’ve carried me through things that I never thought I’d complete. I ran a marathon with their name and lots of other angel names on the back of my shirt, and without them, I wouldn’t have finished.

I’ve been involved in the training of student midwives, telling the girls’ story to hopefully help the next family that goes through the heartbreak. And together, myself and my wife, we co-founded the Little Comforts Trust, and then I was one of the original founding members of Angels United. Throughout the past seven years, we’ve dedicated hours of time to each of these to make sure Poppy and Dottie are never forgotten.

It sounds silly, but wearing the name of my, on my Angels United shirt and the connection to pink and blue is so special to me, and I don’t do things for me. I do it for them and always will do. I think at the start, I felt like everyone else. I felt lost. I had no idea where to turn, what to do, or how I would find [00:30:00] the new normal, as I see it now.

I threw myself into challenges of, and other things until I found something that was right for me. That’s my advice to everyone, really. Find something that works for you, and if there isn’t something you can find that works for you, you’ll probably find another dad that will sit down and want to do the same thing.

It’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to share and show your emotions. It’s okay to speak your baby names, or name, and it’s okay to talk about things, and it’s okay to admit you need some help and support.

You’re asking about what connects me to Evie now. At a very practical level, we created a charity in her name, Evie’s Gift, which supports the families of critically ill children who are in hospital and away from home. So that’s a very real connection. Um, I guess at a more esoteric level, the connection was never broken.

She’s in our [00:31:00] thoughts and minds all the time, so I never kinda feel the need to reconnect ’cause she’s always there. She was so part of our lives and, and so that, that never went. It never left. She’s a, she’s a physical… She’s not a physical presence, but the spiritual one is still the same. We talk about her all the time in everything that we do.

There are reminders of her around the house all the time, thousands of photographs. Her room is still intact. So I guess it’s easy, that one. It’s just, it’s never changed. Thinking about advice and what helped in the first few months and early years after Evie died, I think the major thing for me was recognizing that I couldn’t deal with this alone.

I couldn’t. I didn’t have the capacity to deal with it on my own. Patsy was grieving in her own way, in a very different way. So I sought out counseling very, very quickly, um, and that helped me [00:32:00] to understand why I was feeling the way I was and helped me to understand what, if anything, I needed to do to tackle that.

In some ways, I didn’t need to tackle anything. Sometimes I just let the wave of pain and horror break over me, knowing that it would pass, because it does. It comes and goes, and there are some days, even now, eight years in, it’s still horrible, and it’s still very real. It’s still very fresh. Um, but recognizing that I couldn’t deal with it on my own, and I needed a friend.

I needed someone I could talk to, somebody who would ask me the very difficult questions, somebody who wouldn’t shy away from the difficult questions and was prepared to sit and listen and wouldn’t change the subject every 30 seconds. Um, so that’s the biggest, biggest thing for me is not trying to deal with it on your own.

This [00:33:00] episode is dedicated to Riaan, Sam, Jakub, George, Martin, Evie, Poppy, and Dottie

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