She Died

I'm at the park with 5 of my 12 grandchildren and their father (step to 3, biological to 2).  While I'm helping the 17 month old climb up the play equipment, I strike up a conversation with a mother.  

"Your children are lovely, but what a handful!" 

"Thanks", I reply, "but I'm Grandma".

"Oh, but you don't look old enough to be a grandmother!"  Are you giving their mum a break?  That's a lovely thing to do."  Is she working or just having a nice rest?"

I pause before replying.  I could just agree with her and change the subject, but my 9 year old granddaughter is standing nearby and I don't want to lie.

"Actually no, she died".

"Oh.....I'm sorry to hear that."  The poor woman is flustered.  I don't blame her.  She was just being friendly.  That was the last thing she expected to hear.

And it's the truth.  Louise died suddenly in August 2021, just nine weeks after giving birth to her 5th child.  There was no warning, although if we'd put together a few random symptoms that she had, we may have suspected that something was brewing that we could get checked out.  As she died suddenly, a post mortem was carried out.  The preliminary cause of death was SCAD - Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection, but we won't know any more until the Coroner's final report which could take a year or more.  

Lou had no underlying medical conditions that she knew of and was enjoying parenting her 5 children, aged 9 weeks, 12 months, 7, 9 and 12 years old.  She had the youngest 2 with her husband of 2 years.  

When people give you an example of their worst nightmare, this scenario isn't usually the first that comes to mind.  Until that day, it wasn't front and centre of my mind either.  She'd had a difficult pregnancy, harder than the other four, with several hospital admissions in the final months, and was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia, which she had never had before.  Her blood pressure was always on the low side so this and her general health during the pregnancy had us constantly on alert.

She contracted an infection in the days after she had the baby and was admitted to hospital for IV antibiotics.  We have no way of knowing if the pregnancy and post-birth complications contributed to her death, but I have alerted the Coroner to this information an asked for this to be included in their investigation.

To say the last 6 months have been hard is the world's biggest understatement.  Her husband and I continue to live in the family home and are helping the children and each to other navigate the world that we now live in.  I worked out that apart from a few months, Lou and I lived together for almost all of her 32 years and I have played an active role in the upbringing of her children.  This has made the mechanics of our situation a little easier, but the huge crushing weight of her not being here to be mother to her children and enjoy being married to the love of her life is always with us.

We have had to deal with so many unfamiliar processes to do with the legal issues that arise with a sudden death and I will endeavour to cover some of them in future posts, although I won't go into too much detail, as most of it is for mine, my son-in-law's and immediate family’s ears only.  Maybe some of my experiences will be familiar to you, or maybe you are on your own tough journey after a sudden loss, so I hope that I can offer a little advice or accept some of yours.

One thing I have learned is gratitude.  I am so grateful that I have so far woken up every morning since Lou died and can love her children in her absence.  Of course I wish it hadn't happened and that she was here with her beautiful children and her husband, who was truly the love of her life.  On days that my world feels like it's crashing all around me, I make sure that I acknowledge everything that I do have.  People's petty issues just pass me by.  I just don't care if you were given the wrong coffee order, or that your cheap outfit didn't last its first wash.  I really don't care.  All I care about now are my family.  To be fair I didn't care much about the petty stuff before but I sure as hell don't care about it now.  Because what my family have suffered can't be fixed with a refund or an apology.  We will never be fixed.  We will learn to live with our worst nightmare but we will never truly get over it.