We Had to Look Forward after son's death

 

Some days after Philip's death, we received a letter from the coroner.

The cause of death was stated as a massive heart attack.

I found that very difficult to understand. Philip was young, and there had been no indication that something like this was going to happen.

I remembered that Philip had suffered a sports injury during a basketball game with a friend. He had sprained his ankle and had been admitted to hospital. A plaster cast was put on to help the injury recover.

He died during the recovery period.

Afterward, I read about cases involving serious injuries in which blood clots can form and, in some circumstances, travel through the bloodstream and cause a blockage. I wondered whether something related to Philip's injury might have contributed to what happened to him.

But I want to make one thing clear.

This was never confirmed as the cause of Philip's death.

I personally asked the coroner about it. He told me that he did not know what had caused the massive heart attack.

So I was left with a question that I could never answer.

Perhaps there was a connection between the injury and what happened to Philip. Perhaps there was not.

I simply did not know.

What I did know was that our son was gone.

The grief in our home was overwhelming.

Julie and I had lost our son.

Alison had lost her brother.

Seeing the grief that her parents were going through, Alison said something that has stayed with me all these years:

“You lost Philip, your son and my brother. All of us feel the grief. But you still have me. We all bear the pain, but we need to look forward and live on.”

Those words touched me deeply.

Alison was a tough young lady.

So was Julie.

Both of them carried an enormous amount of pain, yet somehow they found the strength to continue.

I had always thought I was a strong person. But when I look back now, I realize that I was not as strong as those two ladies.

They taught me something about strength.

Strength does not mean that you do not feel pain.

It means that, even with the pain, you somehow find the courage to continue living.

And that is what we had to do.

We had to look forward and live on.