The systems crashed at work again, so why not?
It’s been a while since I last wrote about anything. Definitely over a year. I just haven’t really had anything to write about, or anything I’ve written just hasn’t felt good enough. I miss it though. Writing used to be very therapeutic for me and maybe that’s where I went wrong. Instead of just writing and letting the words flow, maybe I started overthinking it too much? Either way, it’s time to get back to it and no time like the present…
Whenever I tell people what I do for work, I usually get a response like “How do you do it?”. Not out of disgust, but wondering how I do my job without getting emotionally invested. I always respond with “I have to switch off” because I do. I work mainly on child care cases, which typically involve child neglect or abuse. I’d struggle if I didn’t learn how to do that. However, every so often I come across a case that hits a little and here we are again.
Yesterday a Mother passed away. Her children are 2 and 7. I’m invested.
We see death around us all the time, probably even more now due to social media. Just this morning I opened Instagram to see that Davido and his wife Chioma lost their 3 year old son. Opened it again about an hour later to see that Takeoff was fatally shot. It’s always sad when someone dies, whether you know them or not. It’s like you re-remember that we’re really not on this earth forever. I still didn’t feel as sad as I felt when I read that work email today though. You see that sadness? Different.
I started thinking about what I went through when that happened to me, because I was literally the same age. It’s like she died and the innocence you have as a child immediately left.
I remember going back to school not too long after the funeral. My Teacher welcomed me back to class by telling everyone not to speak about it, unless I wanted to. Not to make me uncomfortable and definitely don’t make me upset. He then proceeded with the lesson like nothing had happened. I mean, I didn’t really expect him to do differently. Part of me was even happy that he said what he said, because I definitely didn’t want to talk about it. But I guess in that moment I also realised that “Rah. This is your new reality. Even though your life feels like it’s stopped, it hasn’t for everyone else”. It was a similar feeling to what I felt on the funeral day. I remember sitting at the front of church after I’d eaten, watching life happen around me. Literally. All my friends and cousins were running around and playing, but I couldn’t get myself to get up and join. It literally felt like I was there, but wasn’t really there. Even with people coming to see if I was alright, I physically couldn’t get out of that feeling and just had to sit there and wait it out.
And here I was, feeling the same thing on my first day back to school. I remember I couldn’t even focus on what was being taught. I just sat there thinking of all the things my Mother was now going to miss;
- Finishing primary school
- Starting secondary school
- Finishing secondary school
- Starting college
- Finishing college
- Starting university
- Graduating
- My first job
- Boyfriends
- Marriage
- Kids
And this is just surface level. God forbid I went deeper.
I guess this is why that email touched me. It’s so sad that these boys now have to figure out life without their mother. I just hope they figure it out in a better way than I did and at least they have each other. You see it’s been nearly 18 years in and I feel like only now life is starting to make more sense. Only now I can see properly how that one event unravelled in so many different ways. Only now do I feel like I’m truly doing what’s needed to heal.
18 years. That’s more than half my life!
All I can say is God’s had me, so I believe he’ll have these boys. The world is a cruel place, but thankfully they’re not in it alone and they’ve got each other.
So Rest In Peace to all those we’ve lost. You’ll be greatly missed, but will forever be in our hearts.
Much love and all that mushy stuff x
From the one who sometimes writes.
I eat cake 