De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

Louise & I were recently interviewed for the One of Nine YouTube channel I blogged about here . The motivation is threefold: Encourage priests and bishops by sharing that living a Catholic life is beautiful and totally possible. You don’t have to compromise and lots of us are just getting on with it even though many of us feel undermined and abandoned by the hierarchy. Build community and reach out in solidarity to other Catholic families, share our joys and our struggles to encourage and help each other when things are challenging. Share our story of love and hope in order that it might encourage others who are going through dark times in their lives, help them to realise that Jesus fills our lives with His goodness and presence even when life seems impossibly hard.

"Did you have a good Christmas, Mark?" This is the question I have heard a hundred times since the 25th December and it is a question I find very difficult to answer, mostly because the answer is one that no one wants to hear. This is not because I am a modern day Scrooge, but perhaps best articulated by my oldest son, who, when I asked him if he was looking forward to Christmas on the 24th, said "thing is Dad, you just keep looking over your shoulder and wondering where Ruth is." Ever will it be thus. And though Christmas day was as happy as one might expect, there is always an empty place where my little girl should have been. There is also a shadow cast by all the Christmases of the past and the hopes and dreams they represented growing up. Faced with all that potent nostalgia, I cannot help but compare where I am now with the promise I held in my heart as a child: the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight . Christmas, then, becomes a...

You hear that time heals all wounds. This is a lie. The wound of a lost child never heals, but time does anesthetise you to the pain somewhat. You get used to carrying the cross around with you and slowly, you become able to smile again with honesty. The grief is always there though, often very close to the surface. Sometimes I feel my most honest moments are alone with Mary, bathing her, dressing her, when I can just hold her and cry. Cry for joy because God has given her to me, forgiven me, trusted me, saved me. And cry for Ruth, for the overwhelming love I still feel for her and can no longer express in the tactile way that was so every-day just a few brief years ago. These are strange moments, full to bursting with an incredible amount of love, but also excruciatingly painful. A moment when I let my grief out of the secret, carefully hidden box I keep it in for a moment and allow it to engulf me. I wonder what Mary makes of me dissolving into a blubbing puddle of love in the m...

Louise and I had a lovely lunch on Sunday with my brothers from the Southend Circle of the Catenian's and their wives. We were joined by my son Michael as well, who wasn't terribly enthusiastic at the prospect initially, but pleasingly, said he really enjoyed the whole experience as we walked the dog together afterwards. He bravely gave the after dinner speech to the gathering, a speech he has honed after several orations, the first of which took place in May last year . His speech is quite personal, and quite deep. It is about the experience of losing his sister in 2009, and how his faith has helped him, and indeed all of us to cope with this tragedy. Michael confidently addressing the gathering. You can probably tell from the faces around the table that the speech doesn't pull many punches. I have read through an earlier draft, but have not heard him deliver it himself. Louise had warned me that I would find it difficult, but enthusiastic and proud of my son, I...

About 19:00 hours on Sunday night, "Team Lambert" fell-in to battle formations and headed into the eye of the promised apocalyptic storm. We were heading West, far West, As West as it gets. We were heading home to Mayo. Unusually, we haven't made it back over for about 12 months, so this trip feels long overdue, and it is always an emotional experience to be here. One of the first things we always do is rush down to the family grave where Ruth's ashes are interred. Lou really feels drawn here and coming to the grave is a real need . For me, it does not make me feel closer to Ruth. It is somewhere peaceful, with long association with my family, where I can pray and think about Ruth. I always think about her a lot, but on family holidays it is always particularly difficult, because you feel that she should be here and yet she is not. You feel a gaping hole inside and you know that you can't plug it. You will never be able to plug it. Seeing the grav...

One year on from the birth of Mary Thérèse, four years since we lost our Ruthie. It was suggested by several friends that I write something to commemorate the occasion. It was also suggested that the Catholic Herald might be interested in publishing the piece, which they were, and did! It is my hope that this will reach out to others who are struggling to deal with a bereavement and give them the confidence to put all their trust in God. Click on the image for full size This is the article as I originally wrote it: As we entered the month of July, my mind began to fizz and whir in an attempt to deal with the confluence of emotions which assail it. July is the month of the fatal car accident which killed my darling daughter Ruth in 2009. It is also the month Michael and John were born, and, on the 27th last year, my daughter Mary, the antidote to my devastation at the loss of Ruth, was born. I can't believe this year has gone so quickly, looking at Mary I feel so b...

Mike at the Pantheon in Rome Lou & I had a lovely surprise this week when some friends contacted us to let us know that our second son, Michael, was featured in the local newspaper. The report was about a local public speaking competition which Mike had been representing his school at the finals of. His teacher had this to say about his performance: Michael Lambert performed admirably well in the Jack Petchey public speaking regional finals, delivering a very passionate and moving speech about his faith. It was great to hear such a powerful Catholic message delivered so eloquently by one of our pupils. While he did not get through to the national finals, many people congratulated him and even said he should have won! —Mr P Griffin. Established in 1999, The Jack Petchey Foundation gives grants to programmes and projects that benefit young people aged 11-25. The Foundation exists to raise the aspirations of young people, to help them take advantage of opportunities an...

This isn't going to be a long, torturous post. Just something little that happened to me this morning and smacked me right between the eyes. The point of it is to try and put into words the way in which we (people suffering a bereavement) cope. I mean when you loose a child, it just doesn't ever go away. Every day feels as fresh and as raw, as every other. Your loss feels just as immediate, just as visceral, just as poignant as it did yesterday, last week, last year. You might think you get over it, but I don't think that's true (or even possible). Rather you integrate the reality with your every day life. It becomes part of you, somewhat like the way a chronic illness, a scar, or a lost limb becomes part of you. Faced with the enormity of this you might wonder how it is possible to cope at all. To be honest, if one stops to think too long about it, one starts to wonder that as well. To address this, I want to speak honestly about the reality, but also to offer some...

This time of year is intense for lots of different reasons. Since Ruth died, it has been a period where Lou and I have experienced a heightened sense of loss. There are hundreds of people in similar situations and even in the weeks leading up to Christmas this year, each story of tragedy on the news, the shooting in Connecticut, the war in Syria, the conflict in Afghanistan, the pensioner attacked and killed on his way to midnight Mass on Christmas eve, even the terrible car crash on the M6 on Christmas day itself all bring with them a terrible heightened sense of anxiety and empathy for the effect and terrible grief such life-changing events will wreak on the families.  For many of us, Christmas is like this. A reminder of who is not there, a reminder of grief and pain and heart ache. On Christmas eve, Lou laid out the children's presents in sacks each bearing their own monicker. She used Ruth's sack for Mary, even placing it in the right order (W, M, R, J) and we bot...

I watched this film on Saturday night with some trepidation, as I knew it was about a little girl who is killed. Some things like that I just cannot watch, they are simply too painful, but sometimes, especially if they are well done, they can be cathartic, the medium can allow you to investigate feelings that you might be scared to think too much about, or it may express feelings that you would rather avoid, because exploration of those feelings may lead you to shut down, spiral into a depressive state and cease functioning productively. When my daughter died, there was a lot that I locked away in a box. I have to say I really enjoyed The Lovely Bones and I felt like watching it did me some good. It also got me thinking about a few things in my own situation which I thought I might share with you here. The title comes from a quote from the main character, a 14 year old girl called Susie Salmon, at the end of the film: These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absen...

Scan from 6th June 2012 So here she is; a lovely profile shot of our little lady who is nicely positioned for her arrival sometime around the middle of July. Lou is nesting like nobody's business, which inevitably means that I have been nesting like nobody's business, painting, moving furniture and getting ready for a new member of the family. It is really starting to hit home that this is a reality, that we will have a new small person living with us soon. Lou has acquired some pink tester pots for baby's bedroom. This is a sign. We have never indulged the pink thing with Ruth, Ruth however had her own ideas about being a girl and did pink BIG TIME! She also did sparkles and frills and all those cheesy things. So under the circumstances, Lou is going to indulge every pink whim she feels the need to indulge, and frankly, I say "go for it!" I can't help but wonder how much she will be like Ruth and how much she will be different, and I am desperately t...

Wednesday 18th April 2012- On The Prospect of Having a Daughter Again So Louise is pregnant, didn't you know? We are going to be parents for the fifth time, though we'll only have four children (a fact that causes all kinds of problems when meeting new people). We have been trying to conceive for a long time without success, there will be a nine year gap between John and the new baby. We had left it in the hands of the Lord, but a new desperation entered into the venture after we lost Ruthie. All this was to no avail, despite the fact that, as Catholics, we've used natural fertility to plan our family and thus are rather good at knowing the important parts of the fertility cycle. To be honest, we had all but given up and decided that it was not in God's plan that we should have another child. I have to say that I took this really quite badly, rightly or wrongly, I considered it some kind of judgement on what had happened, or on me as a parent. The desire to be ...