It’s been the hardest four years of my life but now I know my son will always be a part of me
It’s 9 March 2017. I am sitting in an ambulance, holding a plastic cup which contains tea from a machine. I’ve just been told my son is dead. I’m in a kind of paralysis. I feel the cold, smooth vinyl of the trolley I’m sitting on beneath me and look vacantly at the equipment and signs around me. Mind Your Head. Sharps Bin. No Smoking. Clinical Waste.
I am alone, apart from a paramedic who is with me. At this particular moment my world has shrunk to the inside of the ambulance. An alienating sense of shock and horror has taken over and reduced me to a stiff and silent state. After a while I am helped out of the vehicle and taken to a nearby Victorian building. I am led into a wood-panelled room where I sit on a sofa.
