A song for a little bird
An encounter at Center Parcs prompts emotional songwriting about loss and connection.
Content warning: this post talks about child loss.
Last weekend we celebrated the start of the summer holidays by taking the kids to Center Parcs. If you’re somehow unfamiliar, this is basically middle-class Butlins: overpriced forest cabins with swimming pools, chain restaurants and woodland activities (archery, cycling and basket-weaving, probably). It’s Maddy’s favourite place, so we go fairly often.
We’d set ourselves a fairly challenging afternoon on Saturday: mini-golf with the kids, followed by ten-pin bowling, followed by a trip to a restaurant staffed partly by robots. We were outside the bowling place while the kids ran around when we bumped into another family.
The dad came out first, helping his toddler walk down the steps while we were helping ours walk up them. We did the typical “parent pleasantries”: how old is your kid, what’s their name, etc. Shortly his partner appeared and they swapped places and he went inside again.
A few minutes later he reappeared to assume toddler duties again. While I tried to dissuade Ted (5) from climbing a near-vertical rockery, I half-listened to what he was saying to Maddy, who was looking after Robin (1):
“Did I hear you calling her Robin earlier?”
Maddy confirmed this, and then I heard this fellow dad, who looked a similar age to us, gently tell Maddy that he and his partner had experienced stillbirth a couple of years ago, and they’d called their lost daughter Robin, too. I looked over just in time to see him show her a tattoo of the little red-breasted bird on his arm, as he explained that “we all got one” to commemorate his lost child.
I couldn’t really imagine how it must have felt for this man to see a baby girl walking around with the same name as his child who never got to make it this far: it had clearly been on his mind to tell us her name, and share her memory with us. I almost asked him if he wanted to hold her, but I didn’t know how he would take this (or Robin, either) – maybe just talking about his own Robin was enough for him to feel the connection and memory of her that he had lost. I also reminded myself he was playing with his son, a “rainbow baby”.
I’ll keep you in mind
Talking about it with Maddy that evening, though, I found myself in tears. I was moved by his open-hearted honesty to us, total strangers, after just minutes of small talk. I couldn’t stop thinking about how he must have felt when he saw this child of ours who could have been his, but for the cruelty and arbitrariness of life. I marvelled at his strength and love, and how he must feel every time he looks at the robin tattoo on his arm.
I couldn’t get it out of my head. I’m in the process of wrapping up my second album and earlier this week I picked up a guitar and a song just poured out of me. I called it “little bird”, and it’s about this story: I tried to imagine how this encounter might have felt for this man. Tears poured out of me as I wrote the song, too: the thought of losing my children makes me ache with a kind of profound pain I didn’t know I was capable of.
This song isn’t finished or particularly polished, but I just needed to get it down – I think I’ll tidy it up eventually, but the feel was what I wanted to capture. The lyrics are on the Soundcloud page.
Reach out and talk
We’ve been incredibly lucky on our parenting journey that we never experienced anything like this, but plenty of my closest friends and family have, and I still don’t know how those people have found the strength and energy to carry on and even build families. This post (and song) is dedicated to all of you.
July is also National Bereaved Parents Month – reach out to the people you know who’ve been through this. The man I met at Center Parcs just wanted to share the memory of his daughter and speak her name again – for him, maybe this was all he wanted from our encounter.
Mini-feels this week
Important shed news
I know many of my subscribers are really only here for news about my “man cave” aka shed / home office / music studio, so here’s the latest:
When I had the shed converted, the builders suggested I get a proper door for it, instead of the wooden one it already had. When I saw the price tag for this, I baulked: I’m not dropping another grand on this project for something that’s already there.
Six months later, though, and I’m convinced. The old shed door doesn’t fit the new aesthetic. It also doesn’t close properly, which isn’t ideal either. So in a couple of weeks’ time, someone’s going to come and install a nice UPVC one instead. I’ll share photos when it’s done.