"Love, sorrow & hope"

I’m a father to a beautiful girl and have a loving partner. 4 years ago on the birth of my baby girl, my sister-in-law's husband was buried who had died from cancer. It tore us up and at the same time everyone had the overwhelming feeling of joy.

After a week we brought our daughter home.  We were so happy together in our new home and our beautiful family. Over the weeks and months everyone began to feel so much grief and sorrow and constant sadness, whilst trying to be a new dad and bring everyone together it became overwhelming and I began to drink as well and trying to go to work and be a dad.

Things were moving faster and faster and more stress and arguments started between me and my partner. After a while we had a break and good two years of joyous times with my family and in-laws. But my partner took clots in her brain 2 years ago and was hospitalised. It was a scary time and I thought she was gonna die. The pain became to build once again.

I relied on my mum-in-law for support with my daughter and for 3 weeks the worry was killing us as a family. They did test after test and said it was a build up of pressure in the brain, but never fully concluded what had happened.

My partner was released from hospital and had been told she would need follow up appointments to keep track of her condition. The night she got out of hospital I was putting my daughter to bed and it was 9:30 at night. I had a missed call from my partner's dad. My partner was literally still in her nightdress from hospital release. Her phone rang and her dad said pet your mum has collapsed on the kitchen floor.

My partner was taken over to her mum's home, and came across 3 ambulances, 2 police units and flashing lights. Her mum was taken to resuscitation and later passed away. She was our rock and it destroyed our family. She was only 60 and was a healthy grandmother who loved her wee granddaughter so so much.

It tore us apart and grief became hate and her dad couldn’t cope and was constantly asking for everything done around his house and was grieving so bad. My partner’s grief and our sadness as a family grew and grew. We argued about stupid things and she took every day off her work to help her dad, which he needed but all the grief and sadness and anger drove us apart and I drank to try and bottle it all down, which led to a slippery slope.

I couldn’t face being around all that grief and we didn’t deal with it as a whole. We pushed each other away and still are amazing parents to our daughter. But I ended up in hospital with bad mental health problems. I was in for 3 weeks and I got the help I needed to get clean from alcohol, but my partner hadn’t forgiven me for using drink and alcohol, it caused her to push me from my own home and told me our relationship was over.

I’ve never been well with childhood trauma either and this has broken my soul. I was discharged from a hospital unit and if it hadn’t been for the support and care of all those nurses and staff and doctors I wouldn’t be here today. They’ve given me hope from a dark place into light, grief has steam rolled and destroyed our loving family and I hope and pray to be with my beautiful partner again. I love her so much, the mother of my beautiful daughter.

I’ve realised that having love and compassion for others is the only thing that matters in life and we can’t change the past, present or future, only be grateful for what you have and don’t dwell on what you’ve yet to accomplish because if it’s meant to be then you either accept that or go change it for yourself. To all the caring compassionate health professionals out there, you have been blessed and have blessed me with the strength to continue my journey to serenity, courage & wisdom.