Chapter 13 - Flanders

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There were many who could not understand how I could live alone and cut off from the world. In fact I did not feel lonely. There was no room for loneliness. My whole life outside of any immediate needs became consumed by my grief for Max. There was not a moment that I spent alone, when I was not working or applying myself to some task, that I did not think about him and what had happened to us all.

As I retreated from the world, so also did my confidence and ability to relate to people. There was a long period where I could not look people in the eye when I talked to them. I found that I could not really communicate with anyone anymore. The only thing of importance in my life could not be understood by anyone I spoke to. Anything else was just pure irrelevance. I could not chit chat with strangers or even friends. There was no level on which I felt that I had anything in common with anyone anymore.

When Max died, something died within me. I could no longer watch the news of children being mistreated without crying. I stopped watching films and reading papers. Other people's hurt became my hurt and further amplified that hurt. Stories in the papers of people suffering in wars would reduce me to tears. Any film with any emotional content did the same. I could not observe without becoming deeply and intensely involved in the story.

I gave away my prized library of books. The League of Friends at the Royal Marsden Hospital sold second hand books to raise money for the hospital. I was very proud of my books, and yet nothing really mattered anymore. I donated about four hundred books to them. In many ways this was very symbolic. It was part of the cauterisation which involved the dissolution of all that had been my past life.

I had worked on our family home for about five years. When we bought the house it had been used as a bed-sit. It required a lot of work, and most was done by me after work and at weekends. Sara did not work, and this was the only way that we could afford a house which met our needs. I worked incredibly hard on that house and was very proud of my efforts. Now it meant nothing to me. Nothing mattered anymore.

As time passed I withdrew into my own little world.

There is much to be said for keeping in touch with other parents from the Unit. There is a camaraderie and understanding which cannot be found elsewhere. I did not keep in touch. I was doing everything possible to escape my past life. I could barely cope with life as it was, let alone life as it had been. Sara would tell me about people she met and the current status of families we had known at the Unit. It was good to hear the good news, that a child was still well and that a family was coping. The bad news was different. It devastated me. I heard of the deaths of eight children and one parent during the year after Max's death.

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