It seems appropriate to make another jump in time in my memoirs and share this one in Holy Week. At this time of fear and loss, it may even help some others to learn about the loss of my first—and at the time only—child, but know that one can survive and come through to live well and with happiness. Indeed, I was lucky to have two more wonderful children, now grown up, by my second marriage some years later. Those who have followed the memoirs put out so far will know about this. 

My firstborn son by my first marriage, Andrew Walter Tudway, was 20 months old when he escaped from the house in Belgium, where we were staying, and ran out into the road to be killed instantly by a car. I do not think it necessary or kind to put down any more details than that. It was on the 17th of September 1967. I am glad of this chance to share what happened a few days later and about his funeral, because there is great beauty in it as well as sorrow.

Before the funeral, the local pastor came to see us to talk about it. He was the minister of the small minority Protestant church. The Berthaud family, with whom we were staying, must have said we were Protestant. He had a kind face, full of deep sympathy, and a gentle voice. I don’t remember anything he said, but afterwards he read the 23rd psalm. He spoke French with a Belgian accent and the familiar words, yet unfamiliar, swept me into a state like a guided meditation, almost lucid dreaming. I was out of my body, in another place, but was still aware of my surroundings; two scenes superimposed.

I was walking through the ‘Valley of the Shadow of Death’. I somehow knew that was what it was, though it was so dark I could see nothing. At first, it seemed terrible, but to my surprise, I gradually realised it was the natural darkness of great pine trees in a deep, rocky gorge. I could smell and feel the needles under my feet and make out the shapes against the sky but see nothing ahead or around. In spite of that, I trod firmly over rough, hard stones without stumbling, somehow I knew I was safe. Suddenly I stopped, the dark walls fell away on each side as I reached open land. Ahead was a beautiful pastoral country. It was full of fields and tiny trickling streamlets, trees and wildflowers. The evening shadows were long on the grass and away over by a hedge my little Andrew was playing, totally absorbed in the stones he was picking up, as I had so often watched him in our Sussex home. 

I stood very still. I knew I could not go nearer, he could not see me, nor could I stay long, but I had a deep sense of peace and safety. I knew nothing could harm him, not even the streams, which were living water. Very soon, a safe ‘someone’ would come to find him before the cold dark of nightfall. Andrew would look up with trust and recognition and take the hand held out to him, to be led home to a safe house, loved and cared for beyond my imagining.

The scene faded, leaving only the scent of fresh water and a faint sound; the murmur of the approaching someone and Andrew’s response. I was fully back in the room in Belgium. My son was gone. The pastor was just drawing the words of the 23rd psalm to a close.

The experience was profound and lasting. I cannot say it was a comfort for there is none for the loss of a child, but I think it saved me from a complete breakdown. Was it a ‘true’ vision, if there is such a thing? Does the unconscious, in its role of cushioning the person and making sense of experience, the balancing act that protects the psyche by feedback loops, provide us with something so profoundly healing even in extremis? If these more rational-sounding explanations are true psychologically, I believe it is only because we are designed that way. I do not know if there is an afterlife in any way that we can recognise as like this life—in that sense I am still agnostic about it. Do I believe in a loving creator God, who wants good for us? Yes indeed, and never in any doubt about it.

God gives us what we need to survive and grow, individually and communally. The pictures, visions and stories are metaphors and rationalisations but part of our clever design, evolved to cope not only with the ‘nasty, brutish and short’ aspect of life but with the ‘man as little lower than the angels.’

Roger’s parents and brothers came, as did my brother and family and Aunty Joyce. Others made all the arrangements, I was unable to take anything in, but sat by Andrew’s body as long as possible. The funeral was beautiful. Because there was only a small Protestant church, permission was given for it to take place as a joint service in the Catholic church, with joint pastors. Many strings had to be pulled, faraway Bishop’s permission given. Such a thing had never happened in Belgium before, we were told, and had only been made possible by the Second Vatican Council of Pope John 23rd in 1962, a man I have always loved and admired. 

The death of a child is a unifying, purifying tragedy that brings a community together, however briefly. The Protestant congregation supported us in entirety, as a historic occasion. Similarly, the Catholics came in large numbers, the nuns and the school children lined the path. I do not remember anything about the service, but the church was full and the whole of that part was certainly a comfort. There is real human meaning and necessity in the rites of passage societies follow. Andrew’s brief life could be said to have counted for little in the wider world, but in death he had done something healing for people in the community and for the Christian church. 

Andrew’s little coffin was laid in the family vault of the Berthaud’s, where it remains; a great kindness. I did not know it but the normal practice was to put bodies for two years in a common vault and then the bones would be buried unmarked and coffinless. In fact, this would not have troubled me greatly. In the months and years after his death, I faced the knowledge of what was happening to his body and felt no revulsion nor horror. How could I not love him still and everything about him? 

I lost any distress at ‘mortal corruption’ then and forever. Nor did I feel a need to have his body returned to my own country; he is forever in my heart. If I prefer cremation for myself, as indeed I later did for Ken, my second husband, it is more because we have nothing tying us irrevocably to a particular part of the land. In an overcrowded world, I do not feel entitled to take up six feet of it permanently.

More than five decades have passed now, since these events. All my feelings and thoughts have gone through many processes, so that some of the grief of course remains, but some has been distilled into elegiac dignity.

Lullaby For the Mother of a Dead Child

Oh cradle the child as if he were sleeping.
Lullaby mother, and hushed be your weeping.
The tears are not his, nor the pain and the sorrow,
For he is awake in a golden tomorrow.

It is you who are sent to a darkness unending.
Whipped for no fault, you lie, uncomprehending
Oh desolate child, you must wait for the dawning,
But your son is awake on a bright summer morning.

Strong hands hold him up and he chuckles with laughter,
Grasping at stars and the Angels laugh, after.
Then, petted and kissed, from their knees he is springing
To search the green fields where the children are singing.