With all our individual differences, and DNA, it’s easy to imagine that we are all unique. That no-one else thinks, feels, believes and reacts exactly as we do. My life, as it has formed over the past 16 months, has shown me that the differences are only paper-thin. When it really comes to damage deeper than just the outer layer, we are all very similar. I’m in a group of over 300 parents who have found together over one thing: the fact that we have lost a child. It varies, but when it’s possible to breathe in a forum with so much tragedy and concentrated sadness, it is a place where we can freely communicate with each other about feelings and the things in our new life that are particularly hard . Or just a public place where you can virtually scream frustration over the injustice of life, with the assurance that everyone understands and nobody condemns. When the focal point is the loss of a child, it is truly a cross section of the population. Age, Education, Geography, Background, Extrovert, Introvert … All possible categories are represented. It happens time after time that nearly every time somebody writes about their feelings, about their loss, their struggle to move on in life and about the things that make it difficult, it’s not just me that nods in recognition but everyone else too. The feelings are the same; thoughts, despair, hopelessness … the variations only seems to be dictated by how long since you have lost, not who you are. The reactions and actions are something else – they vary, but the feelings they come from are the same.

When necessary, dreams can be very fast. I consider myself to be a rational person with cognitive abilities above average. I have been in life-threatening and critical situations several times in which I have acted calmly and rationally with an eye for the best approach to the best results. In the morning of 1/1/17 after Hans’s first cardiac arrest, where they got him back to life after 14 minutes of CPR, I recalled that I was asking the doctor what his prognosis was under the various circumstances. At that time, we needed rationality. A little after 16:00, we were in a relatives room when a doctor comes in. He goes to Jackie and me, presents himself and says, “I must tell you that we have stopped treatment.” He does not pause unnaturally before the next sentence, so it takes about half a second to continue. In that half second, I dreamed that Hans had recovered so much that they no longer needed to treat him. Although I knew the prognosis, even though he had been transferred from Hillerød to the Central Hospital with medical assistance and had further cardiac arrest just before … all that was rational and I was too aware of what the next sentence from the doctor would be and my brain could, for half a second, build a defense, a world where Hans had recovered and everything was alright … a dream, to keep the doctor’s next word from being spoken: “Hans Michael is dead.”

Then the dream burst and the nightmare began. I cannot answer how long it lasts. Rationally, I can read from the “old ones” in the group that only after 2-4 years of living a life forever affected by the loss, something resembling something one can call life emerges to be lived and enjoyed. I hear that 14 months “is no time”. I trust it’s right. I now dream of a new life sometime in the future, to replace the nightmare.