Isolde21 Sat 30-Jun-18 19:06:29

The above messages are all extremely helpful, encouraging and practical. Also 'sorry to hear about your son' made me cry with its heartbreaking simplicity.

Thank you.



I will re search Amazon, pursue other agents and plough on with the novel I had rather weirdly begun just a few months before my son died (a cocktail of casually prescribed-so it must be safe then-medcation he did not need according to the eminent psychiatrists and doctors I had taken him to; anti depressants in ever increasing without reviewing him, doses, uppers and downers to cope with their side effects, combined with some alcohol celebrating coming home from his gap year all leading to his sudden death- I watched his little plane flying into Heathrow from Africa containing 'human remains'...no one to greet then...), about a mother dealing with the aftermath of her daughter's almost fatal accident on her Summer holiday with a friend's family and her daughter's physical recovery. On her return home the girl becomes increasingly introverted and isolated and it is unclear what has caused this. My idea was to explore the effects of her sexual abuse by her friend's father and how the accident had not been an accident but perhaps a desperate move on her part to remove herself from a situation she could not cope with. A girl who does not want to die but sees no way out of her situation, apparently 'recovering' from a trauma only to reveal a horrific case of abuse, which those around her are slow to recognise. So in answer to the question 'is it (bereavement) too raw to write?' the answer I suppose must be, it is raw therefore it must be writ because from the agony will come the truth all parents dread having to face, how to find a way to live in the wake of your child's death. They go on being dead every morning and every evening as the sun goes down but in truth they will be dead ever second in between. What to do then? Every time I blink I see his beautiful, he was so very, very beautiful, alabaster face a little greenish around the gills by then- a result of the preserving fluids they said.

Perhaps the only way to go on is to write it but would it help anyone though or would it be too depressing a read because if it resonated with your own story it might make you awfully sad and if it does not, would you even want to read something quite as excruciating?



Thank you all. Nothing any of you have offered is negligible and I wish I had joined mums net earlier (first time around). I am lucky enough to have just had twin gals 20 yrs after my son and daughter came along so...You cannot replace a child but you can love an infininte number of them