Little Bird

My Daniel

A little bird, a hole in my heart, an emptiness that cannot describe or understand, it feels so long and also so short. I miss you my Angel. Every moment of my life and with every breath I take. You know, I know. My tears. My sorrow. My wish that losing you wasn't true. A hopelessness and heartache too much to bear but somehow I do. I love you. I love you so much, as always and forever, my Daniel. Pikkewyntjie.

Mama xxx

My Decision

This is a letter that I wrote to Charles when after 3 years of absence, he asked to have contact with Daniel.

We were never married and legally he had no access or visitation rights to Daniel. But was it my right to deny my son having a dad? I thought it was the right thing to forgive Charles all hurt and injustice that he caused us before and I welcomed as Daniel's dad into our precious world. But with that came my fear that he would try and take Daniel away from me...regardless of his multiple promises that he never would.

Grieving Parents

If I look back at the Last year and a bit, the time that started after I lost Daniel, I see so many wonderful things that came to me. I see how God gave me all these blessing to make life easier and as good as it could possibly get.

The letter is from me to someone whom I first met as a fellow blogger around the middle of last year. From the beginning his friendship has been a source of strength and support and I felt immensely sad and helpless when he recently lost his son, as suddenly and unexpected as I lost Daniel.

Dearest Friend

I hope you are as well as you possibly can be so shortly after your loss. If I think back to how I felt a year ago, I relive the intensity of complex emotions and unanswered questions. I wish there was more that I could do to ease your pain but to be your friend.

When I think of Daniel, I have so many thoughts and feelings but among them are two things that I now with my entire being, heart, mind and soul and that is that Daniel is safe and happy where he is now and that I will definitely see him again. I also believe this to be true for your son and for you.

I wish you strength and peace. You are an amazing person and I know you will conquer your pain but it takes time. This is not a quick or easy journey and don't push yourself to remember if you are not ready for the memories.

It took me a year before I could look for the first time at one of the few small video clips I have of Daniel and I still have a brown paper bag in my cupboard which I haven't open. It came from the hospital where Daniel was taken to after he had drowned. When I arrived there he was naked under a sheet and the clothes he had one were put in a bag. I still don't have the heart to know what he was wearing when he died.

There is no time limit on how and when we open ourselves to all that encompass the loss of our children. When we are personally ready and strong enough to face each memory, we will. It can be today, tomorrow or never. There is no right or wrong. And my only advise to any grieving parent is to do what you feel are best for you. I have seen how unique we are in our mourning. Just be as good and as kind to yourself as you can be.

I keep you in my prayers and thoughts.

Love, Alison

After Normal

From the book "After Normal" by Diane Aggen - a real life story about a 14 year old girl's journey through grief after the drowning death of her younger brother.

"Breathe. Please just breathe," I begged myself as I knelt in the backyard, doubled over and gasping for air, my eyes squeezed shut.

I wanted the ground to open and swallow me whole. I wanted to float towards the sun and never stop. I wanted to go to sleep and never wake. I wanted to wake and have this be a horrible, horrible nightmare. I wanted to start running and never, ever stop. I could just keep running. First, though, I needed to catch my breath. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Breathe. That's all. Just breathe. I opened my eyes but quickly shut them again. The grass was too green.

Inhale. Exhale. Each inhale filled my lungs, my heart, my very soul with sorrow. Each exhale left only emptiness.

It is honest and real, written for teenagers by a teenager and carrying the assuring message that life and the future will be okay - a beautiful book about loss but also about hope.

Letter Unanswered

A year ago, 3 days after Daniel had drowned, I wrote this letter to his dad.

Dear Charles

I have an all consuming longing to be with Daniel. Losing him was absolutely the worst thing that could have happened to me, Henry and Alecia. We haven’t been back to our house as it is too painful. I thought of booking into a hotel but then it will only be us, on our own. Daniel was our everything and a most special part of our every day life for nearly 4 years. We are lost in sorrow and hurt.

I am sorry I was so angry with you and Sue it was pointless, as nothing will bring Daniel back and I pray that my time on this earth will pass soon so that I can be with Daniel again.

I cannot look at photos of Daniel, think about him and about the things he used to do or love because of the intensity and extreme pain that shoots through my entire being.

Alecia is in a very dark place her soul broken into pieces and Henry has become like a robot, closed up and without emotion.

I was so sure that you love and care for Daniel as much as I do. You were the first and only person that I ever trusted to take Daniel away on his own. I gave you that sacred trust because you were his dad. Do you know how confused I feel at the moment? I wonder how much you really loved him and I wonder how Sue really felt about him. I am not blaming you or her because if anyone, I blame myself for letting go of Daniel. I just wish I had a better explanation and understanding of what happened on Tuesday.

I can’t sleep and haven’t eaten since Tuesday because I can’t manage to swallow any food. I wonder if you also battle to cope and Sue? She is the lucky one who has her children still with her but I promise you, I wish not for her or anyone else to ever feel this hell of losing a child.

May I die soon because what I feel now is unbearable.

Take care
Alison

Darkness

Please say a special prayer for Henry and Alecia. Similar to my own experience, does the reality that Daniel will never return becoming a cruel certainty to them, prominent in their minds and heart.

We all miss him, as always, more than words can say and it hurt me deep inside to read Alecia's words on Thursday:

" today I miss you so much, today all I want to do is to hold you hand, but reality crumbles like hardened sand today. There is an aching emptiness in my soul, a simple darkness, an irreplaceable hole forever in my head and in my heart. Your laughter is with me, it is all I hear "

My reply to her:

My dearest Lecia child, how I wish with all my heart to bring him back or to ease your longing. My love is with you and Danny will always be part of each one of us. Mom x x x

Alecia

The email was sent to me by Alecia, my older daughter after reading this blog. My heart aches for her as I know how deeply she loved Daniel and how devastated she still is. I wish I could have taken her pain on me. I wish that with all my heart.

From : Alecia
To : Mom

just read dannys blog it so beautiful thank u so much for doing that blog for us.

i miss him so much nd that blog helps so much to remember the sound of his voice and all the beautiful things he did an said im so grateful for the time we spent together and the way he brought our family together but that was just the type of amazing baby he was.

i remember the one time when we were in the bath and all of a sudden he threw me with the dippy dolphin bubble bottel and he laughed loudly and said "ek jou gooi sha" (i am throwing at you sha) and that the sound of his laughter would make you forget about the pain of where you got hit with a bottel of bubbels and just start laughing with him.

that one baby had a huge impact on the way i live my life now and on the person i am today without him i would be just a sister but thanks to him i am a sister who was lucky enough to know that amazing baby and be able to spend the best 3 years and 10 months of my life with him because those 3 years and 10 months made gave the definition of love.

10 years 3 months and 3 days i waited 2 be the lukiest big sister there ever was

Mike

Mike was the first one of my friends that I called to tell the dreaded news that Daniel had died.

He was one of Daniel’s most favourite persons outside our family and Daniel could never get enough of talking to Mike on the phone. About Barney, amongst things, I understand.

Danny died in Johannesburg, same city as where Mike lives. The letter below is from Mike, who is a Civil Engineer, following a press release by the Johannesburg City Council asking for public submission regarding proposed new swimming pool regulations.

To: The City of Johannesburg

I am pleased that the Johannesburg Council is considering amending the by laws and increasing the safety so far as swimming pools are concerned. I have for some time now been listening to the well publicised incidence of drowning on radio 94.7 This public awareness campaign in conjunction with Netcare 911 seems to have emphasized the extreme risk that toddlers are exposed to. All too often the victims were the children of domestic servants ending in pools where the house owners had not secured the pool against children falling in. With each reported tragedy I felt more strongly that these needless deaths can and should be prevented. However being removed and not affected directly one tends to forget the feeling not long after the news bulletin.

On the sixth of January this year a dear little friend of mine fell into the unprotected pool at his father’s house. Daniel Starbuck’s life was cut short two months before his fourth birthday. His mother accepted a request that he spend the last days of the holiday’s with his father in Johannesburg. The parents stayed apart and Daniel lived with his mother Alison.

I have now seen first hand how these senseless deaths rip family’s hearts apart. His mother, sister and brother are broken people and I am not sure they will ever recover. The little man is dearly missed by all who know the family. May he rest in peace.

I write thus for Daniel and all the other little lives lost to the inability of home owners to take simple steps to secure swimming pools. Precautions along the lines of fences, sprung gates, nets and alarms are not expensive when compared even to the upfront or running costs of a pool. These precautions are however priceless when just one toddler is saved.

Unfortunately most South Africans don’t value lives sufficiently to voluntarily install foolproof safety equipment. The proposed permit should thus increase home owner’s awareness of this issue and I hope stiff penalties await people who flout the proposed regulations. This legislation could also open the door to more successful criminal and civil lawsuits when deaths occur after owners have not taken all precautions.

I recommend that at least two independent safety systems be installed. A combination of fence/gate & alarm, fence/gate & net or net & alarm.

Yours faithfully.
Mike Hull Pr.Eng.

This blog was started with an unspoken wish to carry a message strong enough to possibly prevent another toddler from drowning.
If you are a parent with small children, please don’t let your baby become the next statistic. Remember Daniel and let him help you never to look away. Not even for a second.

Owen's Mom

After Daniel had died, I searched the internet for blogs about parent's like me. Parents who lost children. I wrote to them and they responded to me with love and kindness.

Thank you so much to Linda and her precious Owen, Daniel and Kim (Elena's parents), Alice who lost her own little Daniel, Erin who had to say good bye to Charlotte. Your emails, comments, thoughts, prayers, encouragement mean so much to me and have brought light to help me through some of my heavy, darker moments. You are indeed special parents and special people.

The email below was sent to me by Linda - Owen's mom.

Oh, my dear friend halfway around the world, we are connected by loss. What misfortune deems this possible? We were not friends before our children died. We are friends now. We are friends in grief, and therefore, friends for life.

I cry as I write this, for I know your loss, your agony, your sleepless nights, your screaming days. Thank you for the email you sent today. We're connected now. It makes no difference that we live on different continents. Our sameness, is that we are mothers who miss our boys more than we would miss our own breath, if it were taken from us.In most of our waking hours, it feels as though breath, indeed, has been taken, by an entity we cannot fully describe, nor want to.

If I may, let me breathe your next breath for you. If I may, let me scream your next scream. If I may, let me sleep for you when you are fitful in the night (and there will be many of those nights). If I only could, my friend, I truly would. I've spent so many of those nights, they would not come to me without warning - and I would take them from you, if only I could...

These are the early days of loss. They will become the later days, and then...the later days again. You will not forget Daniel, your Danny Boy. You will remember him as the light, the love, the precious gift, your very own special boy. And, those of us who are out here remembering the early days of our childrens' losses, will hold you in our arms when your body shakes, and your voice finally goes quiet from the crying.

We will hold you up, as others have held us. We are here, and you are in our arms, breathing you into the future, your future. We are carrying you when you cannot walk...and when you can barely stand another sunrise, we will be here holding you up. You will always be Danny's mother. That will never change. Yours is not an easy path. Nor are any of ours. And, that is why we hold hands and walk together on this rugged road. No one can do it alone.

Love to you on this journey,
Linda Owen's mom

Time Now

Time scares me….

… because every second contributes to a growing distance between now and when I still had Daniel. A new day is one day further away from when I last saw him. It is already a bit more than 2 months. Soon it will late be a year. Then two years and ten and twenty. I don’t want that Daniel to become something that happened long ago – I want him to stay part of my recent past.

… because I will get older every year but Daniel will always be only 3 years and 10 months old.

… because it makes me more and more aware of the reality that my child has really died. My mind has clinically accept the knowledge the moment I was told that Daniel had drowned but I have this subtle irrational feeling in my heart that this cannot be true. It makes me feel detached and blissfully numb; but I can feel how time allows reality to filter through my defense of this just being a very bad dream and with these moments of emotional realisation comes the most unbearable pain, an agony that words cannot describe.

… because we can never turn back the clock. If only we could.

Dear Lee
Thank you so much for this photo and also for all the other photos that you have taken with so much love. They are priceless treasures.
Thank for being a good person in Daniel's life and for loving "our little Dan the Man" as if he was your own child. I will never forget the laughs and special moments shared between the 3 of us.
Love
Alls Bells

Guardian Angel

I received this email the day after Daniel died, from someone very special. She has been Daniel's guardian angel since we first met, nearly 3 years ago. I find comfort and peace in her loyalty to Daniel and sincere care.

My dearest Alison

No words can describe my heartfelt sorrow for the loss of your beautiful angel Daniel. I really believe that he was an angel sent by God to touch your life with love and joy. I found a beautiful poem which I think is very appropriate and want to share it with you.

I know its too hard to imagine but you need to be strong for your other children and find comfort in the fact that an angel touched your life. I am always only a phone call away so please let me know if you need anything or if I can do anything for you even if you just need to chat.

Warmest wishes with love,C

I carry it in my heart
I am never without it,
Anywhere I ho you go, and whatever is done
By only me is your doing

I fear no fate for you are my fate, my sweet angel
I want no world
For beautiful you are my world
And you are whatever a moon has always meant
And whatever a sun will always sing is you

Here is the deepest secret nobody knows
Here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
And the sky of a tree called life
Which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide

And this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
I carry your heart, I carry it in my heart

I say these words for Daniel because that is how it always will be for me and him.