Grieving father chronicles experience
Bruce Watt's daughter, Kim (18), died three months after being diagnosed with cancer.
WRITING a book about of his daughter’s death has opened up many wounds for local author Bruce Watt, but it was an act of compassion.
‘Losing a Child and the Grieving Experience’, which he has just completed and self-published on Amazon.com and Kindle, is a means of reaching out and giving comfort and advice to other grieving parents.
A number of years have passed since his 18-year-old daughter, Kim, died. In his book, Bruce gives a father’s perspective of what he and his family lived through and experienced during this deeply traumatic time and gives some insights and guidelines for grieving parents and for those around them.
“My intention in writing this is to offer some exposure of and insight into what happened when a huge and tragic life-changing situation suddenly struck our family. I wanted to share the events, awareness, questioning, philosophising, degree of acceptance and level of comfort that have taken place since.
“The death of anyone close to you can be a deeply traumatic experience. The loss of a child has to be the most excruciating of all. It seems so unnatural and so out of the correct and expected order of events, despite the many heartbreaking statistics to the contrary, that I have yet to find words to describe it. One can be a widow or widower but there are no words to adequately describe the fact that one has lost a child.
“Our Kim’s diagnosis of terminal cancer and the almost three months we had with her before she left us, were life-changing. The experience altered our perspectives on daily life, how we interpret life and the hereafter and also how we respond to people and situations,” he said.
As Bruce pointed out, the most important events in life don’t always come with a ‘how-to’ guide. He and his family had nothing to tell them how to live through and continue to live with what had happened to them. If someone had been there to take their hands and tell them they’d been down that road, it might have helped. This is what made him think about writing his book, not only for people who had lost children, but also for their families and for their friends.
As he pointed out, people like colleagues and carers of the grieving parents would also be grateful for some guidance on how to interact with people experiencing that kind of pain.
By writing this book Bruce has told a true story with a very sad theme, but it is a story that needs to be told. It is a recounting of his experience of grieving, of what he lived through and of what he felt or couldn’t feel. He has tried faithfully to record what happened to him and his family, but he also talks about the lessons they learned. By sharing this information, he will surely help many other traumatised people in need of this rare kind of support.
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