I’ve had cause to look into services which help bereaved children and their families. Winstons’s Wish based in the UK looks like a good one.

Fiona husband died by suicide in February 1996, leaving her to raise their unborn child alone. Fiona, from Halesowen, spent years investigating bereavement services and finally found Winston’s Wish, an organisation that could help Fiona and her child David, live with their loss. From a case study.

RD4U (road for you) is another service for bereaved youngsters.

RD4U is a website developed by Cruse Bereavement Care’s Youth Involvement Project which aims to support young people, after the death of someone close to them. We believe that the best way of doing this is to involve young people in planning, developing and delivering services.

Chanel4 made a series of documentaries titled A Child’s Life. One of them, Why did dad choose to die?, deals with the issues around child bereavement due to a parent committing suicide.

Many thanks to those who helped me to find this information this evening.

Ragwort, love it then pull it up.

Under the Weeds Act 1959 the Secretary of State may serve an enforcement notice on the occupier of land on which injurious weeds are growing, requiring the occupier to take action to prevent the spread of injurious weeds. The Weeds Act specifies five injurious weeds: Common Ragwort, Spear Thistle, Creeping of Field Thistle, Broad leaved Dock and Curled Dock.

So says defra, Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs.

We have quite a crowd of guests here for the Summer Training Period. Each Wednesday morning for the next three weeks the monks and guests have the chance to join in a Community Work. Today we tackled the Thistles and Ragwort which are covering the fields above the monastery. None of us have ever seen so many thistles on the property and now I see we have injurious weeds. Indeed we do, lots of ’em!

I started with an ‘off with their heads’ attitude swinging away with a hoe. Quite soon I reverted to a more contemplative approach. They may be weeds, they may be injurious weeds however they too have the Buddha Nature just like you and me.

Song

When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.

I found the above Song, by Christina Georgina Rossetti, in my new found book of treasured sayings, advice and teachings. At the moment I’m making preparations for a funeral on Friday which will be in a town a couple of hours drive from here. This poem brings reminders of a soft acceptance of death. Perhaps I’ll read it at the cremation.

No Sad Songs has a wealth of poems suitable for Funerals, Memorials and Cremations.

Walking along the bottom road this evening. Some stranded calves bellow to their mothers on the other side of the rushing river on the valley floor. Rarely does the river run so wide and fast. How much more can the giant sponge which is the moorland at the head of the valley hold before it disgorges? The road is running with water, in places I have to paddle. This is an unusual situation for us. But, as I walk, I can’t help counting our blessings here. To be grateful to be safe from the power and great strength of flooding water further south, rushing to find it’s level.

So also I can’t help but think of those who are caught up in the drama. And I remind myself not to become vicariously involved in the drama as it unfolds daily. As far as I am concerned the disaster is to loose ones sitting place in the midst of all of this.

Charity, tenderness, benevolence and sympathy (empathy) are the four signs of Enlightenment which we can offer; always and in all directions. For the most part this goes unnoticed, which is as well.