We had picked a plot under a tree as I thought he would be protected from the elements. Come rain or shine, a tree would offer a bit of shelter and comfort, as I couldn’t stand the idea of him being there alone with no one to hold him. We only invited close family and friends to the burial – as well as a few police officers who had been intimately involved in the case – because we desperately wanted a private moment. I was exhausted from being on show and having all those eyes searching for my gaze.
A few prayers were said and my darling boy was lowered into the hole that had been dug for him. Ralph and I placed a single red rose on top of his casket and I caught sight of the gold name plaque on top, glinting as he went down into the earth. I had asked that we be given rose petals to scatter on top of James’ coffin instead of the traditional earth – I couldn’t stand the thought of throwing mud on top of my precious boy. Whatever we put on top had to be soft and gentle, like a final, loving stroke.
By now I was in a total trance, being pushed and pulled into all the right places and positions but feeling nothing at all. The tears wouldn’t stop flowing but somehow my brain wasn’t engaged. What were we doing here and when was I going to wake up from this hell? If the finality of James going into the grave didn’t break the last bit of my heart, then the poem we read as our final goodbye did.
Obviously there was no way I was able to say anything myself, I could barely stand up on my own let alone string a sentence together, but I had written something for my baby the day before. I’d been lying on the bed, thinking about James and all the things I wanted him to know, and I started writing down some sentences. It just all poured out and I decided to try and make it into a poem – I remember thinking that the rhyming would be soothing as he went down into that cold earth. As we stood in the freezing cold and listened to Father Michael reading it out, I thought that it summed up exactly how we felt at the moment:
James, our beautiful baby son.
We didn’t get to say goodbye and that really makes us cry.
You brought so much love in our lives, that love for you will never die.
The only thing that we can do, is sit and pray for you.
In our hearts you will still be there, locked inside our loving care.
God, look after him as we would do, for we are sure that he is with you.
Goodnight and God bless, James Patrick.
All our love, hugs and kisses, Mum and Dad xxxx
We tucked the poem into the floral wreath spelling out his name and then we had to get in the car and leave our baby on his own, with just words and flowers surrounding him. I cried without any care as we pulled out of those cemetery gates – all I could think about was that in just 15 days’ time we should have been going to his third birthday party with balloons and cakes and a pile of presents. Instead we were headed to his wake.
The wake was at the Sacred Heart Club and I don’t remember much about it or how long I was there, but I do remember suddenly feeling desperate to get away, back to my bedroom and away from all this endless chatter. I made my excuses and headed back to Mum’s, where I was also greeted by a sea of faces. I went into the kitchen but soon escaped upstairs and I didn’t come down again for days – I remember rather irrationally thinking, They didn’t even know my boy, why are they here? I also felt anxious, as there were people in the house I had never seen before. I was beside myself and I just wanted it all to end – quite literally. If someone had offered to help me kill myself right then and there, I would have done it without thinking twice.
Ray has said, ‘They were such dark days, we were all beside ourselves with worry for you – it was like this veil had come down and no one had any idea if it would ever lift. My little sister was unrecognisable when I looked at her – the grief had altered you physically in every way. I look back now at photos from that time and I think, That isn’t my sister. It was like looking at a stranger.’
The weeks that followed were actually some of the worst – people often say that there is a sense of release and relief after the funeral of a loved one, but that’s certainly not something I recognised. If anything the abyss just felt bigger and deeper than ever. There was nothing practical to be done and not a shred of hope to hold on to – I knew where James was now and he was lying in a cemetery. I went there a bit but I certainly didn’t get any solace from my visits. In fact, in the very early days when I did go there were often strangers paying their respects and leaving flowers, gifts and teddies for James. I actually found it very touching that people would go out of their way like that for my son, they still do in fact. All these years later there is one family who send money to the flower shop opposite the cemetery on James’ anniversary. They ask the florist to make up a bouquet, put it on James’ grave and take a photo for them so they can see the flowers in place. I can’t tell you how touching that gesture still is, every year I go there to mark the day that James was murdered.
In the immediate weeks that followed the mail continued, as did the flowers and toys. After a while all the soft toys that had been left by the railway where James had been found were collected up and sent to local children’s hospitals and maternity wards. I found it too hard to keep anything associated with where he had been left to die but I knew other children could benefit hugely – at least some good could come out of it.
The funny thing about earth-shattering loss is that, much as it kills us inside, we quickly become used to it, and so the weeks after the funeral took on a weird sense of normality. I was never left alone and my family took it in turns to sit with me. We never talked about what had happened, it was just the comfort of another human being there with me. Nobody knew what to do or say for the best when it came to talking about James. If I brought him up then people would listen and join in, but no one initiated chat about him and I understand why. In reality, no one knew how I would react and who could blame them, I am not sure I would have asked me either.
There was one person I couldn’t reach and that was Ralph. I think those initial weeks after the funeral saw a distance set in between us that just got bigger as time passed – it was like rot setting in. Ralph had never been a man to talk about his feelings – it just wasn’t something that came easily to him, and it was particularly hard in awful circumstances such as this. What could we possibly say to each other that could help the other or make it any better? Our son would still be dead and those boys would still be in custody waiting for their trial date. As James’ third birthday approached, just four short weeks after his body had been found, I think we both hit absolute rock bottom, I certainly felt I had nowhere left to fall. Not only did I have the grief of losing James, but Ralph just stopped coming home. The best way to describe how I felt was like a wind-up toy that hadn’t been fully activated – I was trying to go through the motions but sinking fast.
I suppose a trauma like the one we suffered with James was bound to highlight all the cracks in a relationship that was becoming increasingly fragile. We couldn’t communicate, Ralph was either drunk or out. And none of this was helped by the fact that, when I was at my lowest ebb, I felt Ralph blamed me for losing James and taking my eye off him. Would I have done the same to him if the roles had been reversed? Probably. But I also know that, believe me, there isn’t a single person on this earth who could have added any misery or guilt on top of the mountain I was already buckling under. I know it was the grief talking, but for him to throw that at me in a row felt unforgiveable. How were we supposed to move on if we couldn’t stop hurting each other?
James’ birthday passed and so did the rest of March, thinking back now it is simply lost time that I waded through. I was still staying at my mum’s and – apart from the night I went back to look at James’ things – I hadn’t been able to face the flat. I was still sleeping in my sister Sheila’s room, she was on the sofa, but I knew it couldn’t go on indefinitely. Sheila had a little girl, Antonia, and because I couldn’t face being around children she had been sent to live with her dad. I felt
terrible that me staying there meant that mother and child were separated, which is something I knew I’d never have contemplated with James. It was unfair of me to expect it of her.
After a few weeks I decided to try a couple of nights at the flat, I think one of my family went ahead to tidy away some of James’ clothes and toys so it didn’t hit me again as soon as I walked in. I really tried to be okay there because I knew that life needed to get back to normal for the others around me. I managed three nights in all, one on my own, but I knew that I could never live there again. I saw James everywhere I looked and I knew that wouldn’t ever go away, no matter how much time I gave it.
Sean contacted the council to explain that I had tried to go back to the flat and make it work but I just couldn’t do it, and that it would be great if they could find me somewhere else to live. They refused, so I moved in with my sister Rita, though I still felt like I was putting people out as she gave me her son’s room and he had to go in with his sister, which he hated. I pulled my weight by cleaning the house, ironing and making dinners. In fact that gave me a real sense of purpose and I loved being able to look after people again, but it wasn’t my home. In a way it made the sense of loss all the harder because I had gone from running my own house and having a family to feeling like a child again.
I truly felt like there was no point in living and it was hard because the person that I wanted to talk to wasn’t there. Ralph was coping with things his own way – he had his brother Jimmy and he had the pub. I had lost my son and now I felt like I was losing my marriage. I spent nights on end wondering where he was and if he was okay. I could barely help myself so I had no idea how to see him through his grief. We were imploding and neither one of us had the tools or the energy to do anything about it. We were both angry as hell and so very tired of trying to understand what was happening to us – he wanted to drink to forget and I wanted to go to sleep forever.
And then, just like a gift from God, at the end of March I discovered I was pregnant again. I truly felt like we had been saved from ourselves.
Chapter 12
The Eye of Storm
There are no two ways about it: finding out I was pregnant saved my life. I was drowning in grief and anger and going under quickly. In fact, I would go as far to say that waking up every morning became a deep and real disappointment.
I was all over the place mentally, but I also had no idea if my body was up to the physical challenges of pregnancy. I couldn’t sleep – all I saw was James when I closed my eyes so I stopped closing them, it hurt less. I couldn’t swallow any food – how could I be concerned with fuelling my body when my baby was dead? People kept telling me I would get ill if I didn’t eat and I remember thinking, Good, I hope I get so ill that I die. It sounds dramatic but it was truly how I felt – I wanted my body to give up on me, to take the decision away from me. The only way I could see the pain disappearing was to feel nothing. The weight fell off at an alarming rate, I was a tiny size six and looked like a skeleton with some skin just about covering my bones. All I wanted was my son and I couldn’t have cared less about a single thing.
Obviously the pregnancy wasn’t planned and I was initially completely stunned. But the shock soon turned to terror and I began to suffer from extreme anxiety about the new baby. All I’d ever wanted was a family and twice it felt like God had decided that it wasn’t my path. Now that I was pregnant again, I was terrified something would happen to this child too – this was my third pregnancy and I had buried two babies. What if motherhood wasn’t meant for me and, by wilfully carrying on trying to be a parent, I was putting this baby in danger too? I became obsessed. Grieving for a child is a complicated and hideous enough process, but when you add pregnancy hormones into the mix too, everything becomes much more difficult. However, once I got used to the news, the idea of holding a baby in my arms again helped lift me out of the deep pit of grief that had been consuming me – it was the lifeline we all needed.
I knew immediately that I was expecting and told Ralph my suspicions – he was shocked but, once the surprise had worn off, he was as delighted as I was. Our hearts were broken by James’ death and we were both still pretty much incapable of feeling anything, but I hoped this pregnancy might give us a chance to start healing.
However, it soon became clear that the pregnancy was no magic solution – when people say a baby isn’t a plaster to hold together a broken relationship, boy are they right. My news changed nothing; it certainly didn’t stop Ralph’s love affair with alcohol, if anything, the drinking sessions became longer and more frequent. In those early days, as I weighed up the world I would be bringing our baby into, I would watch him stagger home, a few days after ‘popping out for a quick drink’, and wonder what the hell we were doing. Instead of talking about it and working together, we both carried on doing whatever got us through another day: me growing our new baby, him blotting it out in the pub and spending time with anyone who wasn’t me.
It was so soon after James’ funeral, we were all still in the thick of deep, dark grief. It certainly didn’t feel like a remotely nurturing or positive time, more like battling with quicksand. It was that early denial stage of grief – I kept pretending to live life, but really I was waiting for someone to tell me it had all been a terrible mistake, that it was some other poor mother who would never see her baby again. Random people were still arriving at my mum’s house – they came to bring food and comfort; they offered to run errands or to take me shopping. People were only trying to help but I would look at them blankly and think, You can’t give me the only thing that will fix me, so why are you here? No one could click their fingers to wake me up from this endless nightmare and bring me back my baby, so what was the point?
I still didn’t really interact with anyone – not even with the family members who sat with me for hours on end. That didn’t really change after I discovered I was pregnant. If anything I became even more desperate to be on my own. I decided to wait until my 12-week check before I told anyone apart from Ralph about the baby. I felt a bit nervous announcing my news – even though I knew the family would be happy for us, I also knew they were desperately worried about me and they would wonder if I was strong enough for another child. My mum and I were still finding it really hard to talk about James and what had happened – she didn’t have the words and I didn’t have the will or the energy. It sounds awful, but I just couldn’t be bothered with anything at all, so finding the strength to tell Mum my news was harder than I imagined.
I took a deep breath and went into her room, sat on the end of the bed and told her she was going to have another grandchild. She looked at me for a long time; it was hard to work out what she was thinking or going to say, and finally she told me she thought it was too soon after James. I wasn’t surprised. Of course she was anxious – it was impossible for any of us to contemplate the joy a new baby might bring when our beloved boy had just been murdered weeks before. But, in a way, Mum’s concern and anxiety made me realise for the first time that this was meant to be.
I took her hands and I said, ‘Life is planned for you.’
It didn’t matter that I was trying to convince myself as much as my mum; I had to believe it – it was the only way to try and explain the pure torture we were all living through. I had to convince myself that I was meant to have this baby and be its mother. It was the only way I would survive the pregnancy and not feel as if I was betraying James.
I knew that the press would go into overdrive once the pregnancy was announced – we had been of interest before but, with this news, I had no doubt it would be off the scale. However, I was completely unprepared for the pressure and scrutiny. We all were. Actually, although he didn’t dare say anything at the time, Ray was terrified for me. My baby had been murdered, his ten-year-old killers were going on trial and I was a pregnant six stone recluse too terrified to open the curtains in case the reporters who were camped outside saw me – it was no way to live. Ray didn’t know how I would last i
n such a pressure cooker environment and he woke up every morning wondering if this was the day it would all disastrously collapse. Each day there was a new story and nothing was off limits, especially my surprise pregnancy.
I had been kept away from the press since the day James went missing, whether it was good or bad. I now understand there were all sorts of things written about me and, once the pregnancy story was out, that started happening again. Everyone seemed to have an opinion and there were definitely people who thought that I was having a new baby too quickly – as if we were trying to replace James immediately. That couldn’t have been further from the truth – I was barely functioning – but that didn’t stop the detractors from thinking: Look at her, she’s lost one and gone straight on to have another. Yes, it was very soon after James’ death but, in all honesty, if I hadn’t been pregnant with Michael in those early months after James’ funeral I wouldn’t be here today. The baby became my lifeline – before I found out the news I didn’t know how low it was possible for a human being to go. Did I try to kill myself? Not quite. Did I think about killing myself? Absolutely. Very often and in great detail.
Once everyone knew, the family stepped in to try and protect me as much as possible because the press couldn’t get enough. They were still printing pictures of James on a daily basis and they wanted interviews about the pregnancy. It was a strange thing to fixate on, but one of the things that upset me most about the coverage was the fact that the papers kept calling James ‘Jamie’. I have never understood why they did that – perhaps it sold more papers? But whatever the reason, I hated it. It was one thing to feel that the world had hijacked your child in death, but when they started calling him by a different name, it felt as if he wasn’t mine anymore.
I Let Him Go: The heartbreaking book from the mother of James Bulger Page 10