Shadow

Poems of Loss, Love and Light.

Dom stopping to admire the spectacular view on his travels in South East Asia

You did not belong 
in the shadows

Yours was a life
lived fully
and there were 
no half-measures

Maybe you knew
it was now, or never



And this has been
the gift you left

So I don’t want to
just pass through...
These remaining days  
need to count

Because now I understand
how precious they are



Shadows are for ghosts
lying waiting in the wings

But you are still so present,
and encouraging, 
teaching me not just 
to plan things

but to be brave and 
do them now


You do not belong 
in the shadows

And neither do I 

---

People take their lives for all sorts of reasons, although there are often similarities in their thought processes. In the years since my darling son Dom died I have learned that, in addition to feeling overwhelmed, it’s especially common for a suicidal person to believe that things won’t and can’t ever change. But we never really know what was going through their minds, unless we have been to this extremely dark and desperate place ourselves.

But of course, it is human nature to speculate. I have come to believe my son’s depression had stopped him from being the person he wanted to be, approaching life with enthusiasm, meeting challenges he’d set himself. And that he no longer felt able or willing to live a pale imitation of the life which he’d worked so courageously to create.

As someone who could suddenly (and inexplicably) succumb to social anxiety, one of Dom’s bravest decisions was to go travelling solo in S East Asia. He spent a year getting money together to do this before setting off, aged 25. The photo at the top of this post is of him gazing over the landscape where he’d ridden on the motorbike he bought and used to travel up and down Vietnam, in the process amassing an impressive total of 1715 kilometers.

---

Suicide leaves an indelible mark on our lives: we are scarred forever. So, inevitably, this painful loss will now be a part of our own life story. But if we can see nothing beyond it, this tragedy will also be the very worst kind of legacy, for our child and for us.

My son was a big character, who lived out so many of his dreams. He made the most of the 30 years he was here. And I want his story and my own to be about so much more than how he died.

So, like Dom (and I feel sure, with his blessing) I’m determined not to let fear get in the way of doing things that really matter to me. There will be more of this to come in my next post. For now, moving forwards, I’m pleased to say I’m about to embrace both a medium and much BIGGER challenge.

---

After I’d finished writing today’s poem I went to the Facebook page my son had set up (as an ongoing Food Blog to accompany his travels) to find the ‘right’ photo. That’s where I discovered what felt like the perfect one. I still wanted to include one of him on his actual bike and so I opened his usual Facebook page, the one where, after he died, other photos had appeared, many of them posted by the strangers Dom encountered on his travels, alongside their funny and often moving stories of meeting him.

That’s when I stumbled on something new, posted only last month, which brought me to tears. It was from a girl who had met Dom when they worked in a restaurant on a Cambodian island called Koh Rong; she’d never forgotten him and was really sad to have (just) discovered that he’d died. She talked with such fondness of their time together, of their sharing English/Turkish recipes, and his eventually teasing her that he ‘cooked Turkish food better than I did.’

All of this made me smile; although he’d never mentioned her, I remembered Dom calling home back then and his speaking with such enthusiasm about being a chef, because cooking food for (and with) others was something he absolutely adored. But it was her final words which really touched me. Because they reminded me that there are so many memory-keepers out there in the world, keeping my son’s light burning, and that the indelible marks of love he left behind will always be his true legacy.

I know that when we die, we do not truly disappear. When I leave this world I will ask to find Dom. I feel lucky that he touched so many lives, including mine. I’m sure we’ll cook together again.

---

My aim in all my writing is to share my journey in ways which help other parents navigating child loss feel less alone. Posts are free…but if you wish to show support, I always appreciate new subscribers and any sharing of my work. The buttons are below, thank you.

Stories from other bereaved parents can be found in Tears, Tools and Treasure. And if you would like to share your own story here, you are warmly welcomed to DM me.

Unless otherwise stated, every word in this post is my own. No form of AI was used to produce it as I believe in the importance of lived experience and authentic expression.