Navigating my children through grief made me a fiercely protective parent

Welcome back to How I Parent, where we get a glimpse into how the nation is raising their kids.

This week we’re speaking with mum Linda Aitchison, 55, from Wolverhampton, whose husband, Neil, died of cancer in May 2012. Their twin daughters, Em and Mel, were just 13 at the time.

‘Before Neil became unwell, I was such a laid-back mum,’ says Linda.

‘We didn’t worry about much. We laughed a lot, and I treasured that above material stuff. If Em and Mel were worried about anything, I listened and we’d talk about it. Without fail, we’d always conclude, ‘It’s not the end of the world’. But then, suddenly it was.’

Linda explains that Neil was diagnosed with terminal melanoma cancer, and was suddenly paralysed by tumours in his spine.

‘On being told his condition was incurable I blurted out that I wanted to get married. The doctor said Neil had said the same,’ she says.

Shortly after, the pair, who had been together for 16 years, got married. Neil was having palliative treatment to lessen his suffering, and he even improved enough to come home.

‘Daily physiotherapy from Macmillan nurses meant he could walk a little,’ Linda says. The family were also supported by childhood bereavement charity, Winston’s Wish.

Explaining how Neil and Linda spoke to their daughters about their dad’s illness, Linda says: ‘At home together, we explained fully what was happening. I can see still my girls now clinging on to each other on our sofa.

‘Neil was amazing and I was in awe of how he found the words to say what no child should have to hear.’

Nine days after the wedding there was some hope. Neil’s doctor said that he had the best response he had ever seen to chemotherapy in a melanoma patient. 

‘Again we cried, this time tears of relief and joy. Perhaps now we could have years together as husband and wife and would raise a toast when our girls turned eighteen,’ Linda says.

However, Neil’s disease spread to his brain. Six months after diagnosis he died, aged 44.

Linda describes the months that followed as ‘a complete blur’.

‘I often describe the loss of Neil as a bomb going off in our family and we were left picking up the pieces,’ she says. ‘We were so full of rage about his loss, and our future without him, that we sometimes took our anger out on each other.

‘Family and friends were stunned and didn’t know what to do. Some had been in denial about how ill he was. Em and Mel went back to school quite quickly for the ‘normality’ and I was very bitter at a perceived lack of support.’

Bewildered, Linda notes that her parenting style changed depending on her girl’s needs and she developed a side of her that was ‘fiercely protective.’

‘Three weeks after their dad died, we all went to parents’ evening where a teacher started to criticise Mel for “looking out of the window” in lessons. I said, “I’ll stop you there,” and requested more understanding.’

And, understandably, Linda felt overwhelmed by the task of parenting alone.

‘Our house was crumbling from my neglecting it, and I felt I was letting them down,’ she says. ‘At one point we didn’t have a working oven, kitchen light, or sink as it all got on top of me.

‘Our counsellor said we should draw up a rota of household tasks. Rather than sorting it out, we had a furious row.’

‘I ended up scrunching the handwritten rota into a ball and throwing it on the floor. Somehow we laugh about that now!’

Linda shares that grief counselling, and not bottling things up, helped them speak freely to each other, however difficult it felt.

They also decided to volunteer for charities, such as the Buddy Bag Foundation, which provides a bag of essentials to a child placed in emergency care. They also went travelling together.

‘A year after Neil died, we went to South Africa to help children orphaned by Aids. Our job was to play with them and show them love,’ she says.

‘My tears came not only from pride, but from waves of understanding and grief. My beautiful brave girls getting blisters carrying beds they had made for miles, laughing with the children, and understanding their heartbreak.’

Linda says that keeping Neil’s memory alive has been really important when raising her girls – for her and her daughters. They would often write letters, and make memory jars with keepsakes from Neil.

Linda describes finding strength as not consciously conforming into what people stereotypically consider ‘strong.’

‘We did our best and that was good enough, I did not consider myself strong or “inspirational” as people insisted on saying, I just thought we had no choice but to keep going,’ she notes.

‘Work went on the back burner, I took time out to be there for Em and Mel, I turned full-on ‘super scrimper’ and booked the lowest cost holidays I could find. I’m happy Mel and Em could see this was my priority. I joked we would sit in the dark and eat Aldi beans on toast if it meant we could get away sometimes!’

Linda says she has always encouraged her girls to be open and honest about emotional challenges throughout the years, particularly with other bereavements.

‘We lost their grandad and my best friend, Carol, who was my business partner too. More recently, their auntie, my sister-in-law on their dad’s side, died. And, this last year, my brother died after he spent 10 months in a coma after a car crash – at the same time, their grandma, thankfully now recovered, was hospitalised for weeks on end with heart failure and cancer.

‘Amid the impact of repeated bereavements, we have all grown to understand how voluntary work and helping others also helps our hearts.

‘I am beyond proud of them, both are in lobbying and political campaigning jobs after graduating from the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University.

‘The most important thing for me was for them to know that however tough it gets, however, broken and raging we were with grief and trauma, I love them and I’m always here for them.’

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