My blog today was to be about what assets I still have, and the things my advocacy and blog are achieving, but after reading Remember the children in the Australian Ageing  Agenda , I felt it too important a topic not to add this as my blog for today. It is not just after the death of a loved one, but throughout the illness it is equally important.

When I underwent brain surgery, my husband and I paid little attention at the time to the emotional needs of our children, not because we are bad parents, but probably because of the stress to us all was so significant, we simply forgot. We did talk about it a lot, and discussed the possible negative outcomes, but when I was in recovery and HDU, not only was I unaware I had seen them, my husband was so stressed he didn’t think about the impact on them of seeing me hooked up to tubes and monitors with a very swollen face, and not recognising them at all. It traumatised him as much as them, and together they muddled through going to school, working, and managing at home without me to help them, with the added load of visiting me and worrying about me.

Some years later one son spoke about it in a speech he made at a retreat, and when I read the speech, I was stunned not only with the incredibly beautiful and meaningful speech, but the severity of the impact of seeing me after that surgery. We have since discovered they didn’t want to talk about their feelings, for fear of upsetting us or placing more of a burden on us. In hindsight, I’m surprised the college they attended didn’t offer them emotional support, and am also a little sad I didn’t think to ask for them to do this, or to have provided it in any other way. We can’t go back, and we seem to have all survived in our own ways, but the grief and emotional burden on children in any serious illness situation is great, and not finding ways to help them express it can contribute to later trauma for them.

“Palliative care staff must place a greater focus on providing emotional support to children following the death of a loved one because without it, they face a greater risk of experiencing problems in later life, according to an end-of-life care expert… read more”