Oscar’s funeral was exactly 4 years ago on Sunday 13th May – it is also the day we attempt to take 65 children and their families up Mount Snowdon for the charity. I will never understand that Oscar is dead. And I will be forever grateful for the people we have around us supporting us. It is humbling that so many people, and poignantly so many kids, want to be there for us, for Oscar and for other children with brain tumours. In a world where sometimes we lose hope, this weekend restores all my faith in human compassion and empathy and in the saying “The smallest gestures can produce results that will change the world”.
Four years and it still feels like only this morning I was cuddling my boy. I can still physically feel what it feels like to hold him – I know the shape of his strong leg muscles, what his skin feels like on his arms, the touch on my cheek when he would give me one of his rare “butterfly kisses” and it’s a blessing that I can still feel all this. And it is probably incomprehensible for others, but it is true and real for me. And it is all I have left along with memories.
It’s sometimes a strange way that we try to understand life and death; we give the things that happen to us meaning or at least we try to. We come up short, though, when really bad things happen. There is no justification for your child getting a brain tumour and dying. We didn’t need to learn to appreciate our children and our family – they always came first for us, so why? Oscar was such a lovely, kind, funny and strong boy and he certainly did nothing to warrant having to go through so much pain, so why?
Maybe we just don’t have to understand and give it meaning and all we can do is accept. Life is really rather short for most of us and all we can do is try and make it good. I don’t think any of the things we have around us matter much. I know for some it does and I will never understand these people’s way of thinking, but peace be with them; if they are happy and not hurting anyone who am I to judge if the latest big car or tv makes a difference in their life. To me, though, the only real pain I am and will ever feel is missing the people I love and so, the only real joy I will ever feel is from the people I am lucky enough to surround myself with.
So yes, I cuddle my children even more, I memorise the looks on their faces in all sorts of situations and I teach them to be kind, loyal and loving so they, too, will know the joy of great relationships. It’s not just partners that makes us feel happy inside – it’s friends and family, too. I have lots of people around me that when I think of them I can feel that joy in my tummy and laugh out loud about some antics from ages ago still.
And I think of Oscar one day when we walked in to school during his period of treatment and he turned around to me by the car and smiled that biggest smile of his and his whole body did a little jump as he told me he couldn’t wait to go in and see his friends because they made him so happy inside and he asked me if that was odd. Odd Oscar? It is blooming fantastic that you were so lucky to have such great friends and cool enough to know it.
It is also only recently that Oscar’s friends mentioned that they felt we needed somewhere in our home village, preferably the school where he was so happy, whereby he would be forever remembered. Oscar was always someone who was going to inspire people. His tennis coach mentioned at his funeral that Oscar taught him more about life than he could ever teach him about tennis. And he was right; I have never even once known Oscar to give up on anything and whenever I feel myself falter or hesitate a little I think of him and I think; “Because of you I won’t give up!” – what a legacy to have.
We didn’t make it to the top of Mount Snowdon last year due to nature blowing us off the mountain, but in true Oscar style we won’t give up. So 4 years after all your friends and family said their last goodbye to you, we walk with you in our hearts, Oscar Hughes, our beautiful forever 9 year old boy.
