Matthew was shaking. You could feel the shock through him. For half an hour we just held each other and cried.”
Despite undergoing surgery to remove his kidney, they later learned the cancer had spread but, despite being accepted on various new trials, his body, sadly, did not respond to the treatments.
On his last night in Myton Hospice, in October 2016, his family bore witness to a bedside wedding to his girlfriend of nine years.
“It was wonderful to see Matthew’s face. I’m so happy he got his last wish. I stayed with him that night. I stayed awake and I held him. It turned out to be his last night.”
It was soon after Matt’s death, at the age of just 27, that Louise sought solace penning heartfelt letters to her son, eventually turning them into her first book.
She said:“I’ve had amazing feedback for my books from people all over the world, including Australia, from a lady who lost her son with the same type of rare cancer. She was really struggling with her grief and said it helped her process her emotions. When you get feedback like that, it's incredible.
“While grief is a sensitive subject I approach it in a way that feels both real and honest. The experience of losing my son sent me on a journey through the darkest depths of my soul but by sharing my story, and my learnings, I now have a passion for supporting others going through a similar journey.”
It’s the same passion that has driven Louise to recently put herself through a programme of specialist grief training.
She added: “Combined with my training and my personal experience, I feel confident I can help other people who are going through grief.
“When I was going through the rawness of grief in the early days, I just wanted to sit and feel everything that it threw at me. But every now and again, just to get out of that space, I started listening to podcasts with other people who had lost loved ones and it completely resonated with me and I felt less alone.
“I never ever thought I would start a podcast myself. I'm not somebody that puts myself out there, I like to sort of sit back and watch the world go by and not go out of my comfort zone. But Catherine was a big inspiration and it was after being a guest on her show that it really planted the seed.
“I feel that Matthew is with me when I'm doing this and that I'm being guided by him. I think he would be proud.”
Louise and Bill mark Matt’s birthday every August with a trip to a favourite family spot at Watersmeet in north Devon, where they drop a painted pebble in the river in a private ritual of remembrance.
While the weight of grief continues to bear heavy on Louise, she is now able to say she has accepted her son’s death as well as how to live with it. Motivated by his memory, she now plans to wind down her holistics therapy business in order to dedicate more time to the podcasting and, finally, to herself.
She said: “Grief comes in waves and in the beginning you feel like you're constantly being bashed by them and then over time you get a bit of a lull in the wave and you can breathe and then the waves get smaller and the spaces in between the waves get longer, and then you think you're doing really well and suddenly the tsunami will come and knock you over again. It could be seeing somebody in the street who looks like Matthew or a song on the radio or some random thought that pops into my head. I've accepted that because I know now even that if a massive tsunami comes, I'm going to survive it. I know I'm going to come out the other side.
“It’s like a grief shadow, you know, that it's there. But it's like it's Matthew and so it's a good feeling. Sometimes it can be so strong, like an overwhelming feeling of love, like Matthew's given me a virtual hug. I've accepted his death, I'm able to move on in my life. I just carry it with me now but I carry it with love.”
Both Louise’s books are available to buy on Amazon and are also available on Audible. A Gift For Grief podcast episode can be heard here:
https://pod.link/1699741572
WHAT CATHERINE SAYS: "I was at Matthew’s funeral, observing a family ripped apart by a cruel, terrible, indiscriminate disease, cancer. Louise and I met, as it happens, on a retreat, looking into our past lives. I loved her energy, and she was my kind of woman. And over the years, I've pushed and prompted her because I could see she's got so much about her. Her books are making a phenomenal difference. As a guest on my podcast, I was delighted when, again, being prodded, she started podcasting too. Her Gift of Grief podcast is a really wonderful resource for people gripped by loss and grief. Louise has absolutely turned her pain into purpose.
You can follow Catherine Williamson’s Gobsmacked podcast at
https://gobsmacked.me/ The book accompanying her podcast is available to purchase
LIVE24-SEVEN.COM
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ENTERTAINMENT CATHERINE WI L L IAMSON
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