Through the facebook group that I joined, a lady wrote me an email, introducing herself as Elizabeth Burton-Phillips MBE but what caught my eye and my heart leaped, was that she offered to come personally to Malta so she can help me through this raw initial grief. I was completely overwhelmed!!!
I read her treasured email again and again and searched for more information.
She’s the author of a very mind-blowing book “Mum, Can You Lend Me Twenty Quid?” – a memoir of the extraordinary turning of her normal life as a school teacher her fight for her twin sons as their lives followed the path of addiction, a rough road, a path that surely neither she nor her sons never in their wildest dreams ever entered their minds ending with a tragedy, that of losing one of her sons when he was 27 years of age.
I could associate what I read with my pain and the more I learnt about this extraordinary lady the more she inspired me. She did not bury her head but wrote this book to spread truthful knowledge on addiction and founded the charity DRUGFAM. Her love for her sons has spread over the borders of the UK to so many countries and into my painful heart in Malta.
For the first time, even though my dreams and hopes subsided, this wonderful lady inspired me, opened the door of grief wide open and I was enlightened that there’s a life as a bereaved mum.
I told her that she need not come here to Malta but I will join one of her support meetings. Joining one of her professional quarterly support meeting, I received specific knowledge I needed to deal with my grief whilst I had the honour to make personal acquaintance with her, her wonderful dedicated staff and other parents in grief like me.
DRUGFAM holds an Annual General Meeting and in 2016, only a year after my grief started, I went again to the UK and delivered an emotional presentation about Ian, and what a proud mama I was, even though so many tears rolled down my eyes.
Elizabeth always organises extraordinary events to cut the painful silence and make voices heard. In 2019 she invited me to join so many other bereaved parents for a special service at Westminster. Oh of course, I accepted so eagerly. My reserved seat was at the front end where the royals normally sit at Westminster and right behind me was Ian’s fan, RUSSEL BRAND!!!
Oh what an emotional event that was!!! Westminster was filled with so much love that day!!! The peak of the ceremony was when each one of us SHOUTED OUR CHILD’S NAME at the same time…. still brings so much emotions inside me and tears to my eyes.
6 years in grief and walking right beside me, even though I am miles apart, are such loving wonderful friends. Yes, we do have a life too and together we share our anger, our pain, our grief but also, of course, our accomplishments, our happiness and beautiful experiences that, having touched the bottom many times, we appreciate so much more. I am so grateful that I have been able to walk this way in my grief as I cannot imagine myself bottling all my emotions inside me.
I might never become an author, even though I joined my English friends in publishing a book with a collection of poetry, tributes and other literary works. I might never be a founder of a huge charity such as DRUGFAM but I understand that there is a life with my loving grief for Ian, my dearest son.
Even though he is not physically with me, my love for him can still grow and I can still make memories of Ian which I can treasure together with the special memories I am making of my other two precious children.
