A shared grief

I mentioned in a previous post that our SW was going through a big personal crisis. Yesterday we found out that she has taken time off because she can't cope with all that's going on, and we have a new social worker taking us to matching panel. This SW is OLD SCHOOL. When she came over yesterday, it made me realise how ridiculously lucky we'd been with our SW; how much we'd laughed together and how we'd even, when she broke down last week, had a group hug and cried together. With this new SW I remembered that SWs aren't paid to be human, they're paid to be PROFESSIONAL. I ballsed it up straight away by not cleaning the house (we quickly realised with our SW that this wasn't a big thing) and then revealing that we were worried about our SW and to send her our love. Ears pricked on the new SW - 'worried about her, why? What did she say?' Help! Cue much guilt for landing our beloved SW in it.

She then went round the house and started pointing out where we'd have to get locks on the windows and build gates and things. I was pretty close to telling her to f*** off, that we'd been through that part of the process and had passed. But I didn't. I held my breath and said 'if we lived on a busy street, I wouldn't leave the door wide open so that my child could walk into the street. Instead, we live on a cliff and I'll employ the same level of conscientious parenting I would if I lived on a busy road.' She told me it was very unlikely we'd meet LO on 14th September and it would likely be the following week. Crushing, but I'd been expecting it, so it didn't feel as bad as anticipated.

She also gave me all of LO's birth mum's psychological assessment notes. Now, anyone who's read these knows that you have to take it slowly. Make a pot of tea. Break it into manageable chunks. Take breaks. Have a cry. I knew they'd make tough reading, so I was careful with myself and tried to do it in a nurturing kind of way. What I wasn't anticipating was the enormous and overwhelming level of compassion that swept through me. Little things she said, ways in which she behaved with LO. Never missing a contact session and trying, desparately, to assert her maternal love and authority whilst being constantly watched and assessed in a cold office building. She loves her son. She isn't perfect and has made awful mistakes in her life. But it just struck me how incredibly, breath-takingly LUCKY R and I are. That we had parents who, though they made mistakes as all parents do, loved us and provided us with stability. LO's birth mum never had that. She had violence and abuse and hatred. She was never taught how to love. And from the moment she tried to make a normal life for herself, she was watched. Everything she said and did for the last twenty odd years is recorded and picked over. I suddenly felt her loss so acutely, especially when I read the psychologist's final assessment that she wasn't fit to parent: our gain. But - so very, very acutely - her loss.

In the middle of trying to process some of this information, my mum called. My mum has MS and is struggling with day to day things. She was tearful and anxious. We talked for some time. After the phone call, I felt exhausted; exhausted because my mum is going through so much and needs so much love and support. And I had a massive cry. Many years ago, my friend Chas said that she had a big cleansing cry every week, just to shift stuff and even if she didn't really feel like crying. Recently that advice has been pretty useful. Yesterday, I cried for my mum, trying to do simple things and failing, finding photos of herself pre-illness and missing those days. I cried for LO's mum, for all those times she wasn't loved and for the self-hatred and the hatred of others that followed. I cried for LO's dad, for the confusion and heartache and loss. I cried for our SW, who has lost something so special to her. I cried for LO, for his loss of a mum who loves him but doesn't know how to look after him. And, I'll admit, I cried for me and for R, for all that we have been through.

Sometimes, it feels like you lift the lid on the pain of humanity and look in, just for a moment, and it is huge, vast, overwhelming. We can just take a little bit at a time or our hearts would burst. So we mingle our tears with the tears of everyone - our shared pool of grief (was LO's mum crying last night for her son?)- and move on. Because to linger there would be dangerous, and we have to take what we've learnt back out in to the world and try and make a more positive future.