Writing helped me deal with my grief for Adam
Author started his series of children’s books after his four-year-old son died
AWARD-WINNING children’s author Benji Bennett – whose Adam’s Cloud series has now sold ‘well over’ a million books – has told how the power of ‘positive grieving’ has helped his family to cope with the tragic loss of his four-year-old son.
Mr Bennett embarked on the venture following the sudden death of his little boy, Adam, in 2007.
The self-published books have since become a low-key phenomenon in Ireland and beyond thanks to their enduring message of love and support between parents and children – and their author and his wife Jackie’s tireless efforts in promoting them.
Mr Bennett said the 15 years since the first story in the series of nine was published – the Irish Book Award-winning Before You Sleep – have been ‘a roller coaster of ups and downs and belief and non-belief’.
He told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘I keep asking myself “Is this going to work?” And every year it does somehow, and we make it work. So it is full-time, it’s 24/7.’
The former telecommunications worker, who quit his old career after releasing the first book, said he has ‘kind of stopped counting’ how many books he has now sold, but he said it is ‘well over the million mark’.
And the journey has taken him
‘He had a seizure and went limp in my arms’
through ‘every emotion under the sun’, he said.
‘One minute I’m going to take over the world and next minute I’ve got to go and get a taxi plate and drive around because where’s next week’s money coming from?
‘But somehow it keeps on going. And that’s just having a bit of belief in what I’m doing and Adam keeping an eye on me to make sure that I’m doing things right, hopefully.’
Recalling the weekend the family lost Adam suddenly following a brain tumour, Mr Bennett said they were coming to the end of a holiday in Ireland, and he remembers telling his wife they were ‘the luckiest people alive’ as their children played in the grass on a hazy summer’s evening.
Then Adam complained of a headache, which turned into vomiting the next day, but nothing that concerned the GP greatly.
After another night with no improvement, they took Adam to the hospital.
‘As soon as he was admitted, he had a seizure and went limp in my arms,’ Mr Bennett said. ‘And he was gone.’
The four-year-old was kept alive by medication for a couple of days but he never regained consciousness, having suffered a severe stroke caused by a brain tumour that had bled.
‘We were literally from that scene of “Oh my god, isn’t life wonderful?” to four days later, Adam, our beautiful, golden-haired boy with sun-kissed brown skin and beautiful brown eyes… is gone,’ Mr Bennett recalled. ‘How are we ever going to get through this?’
The family took solace from having packed so much quality time with Adam into his short life. This inspired Mr Bennett to devote himself to making sure other parents do the same. His bedtime stories are one part of his parenting ‘mantra’: to read, walk and talk with children from an early age.
Speaking to mark Storytelling Week – a seven-day-long celebration of storytelling in all its forms, from books and movies to oral tales and comics – Mr Bennett said reading to young children regularly ‘just changes everything’.
‘The psychology behind it is attachment, it’s security, it’s communication, it’s reassurance, it’s bonding, it’s connecting, it’s relationship-building.
‘My whole thing is read the book, share an adventure together and tell your kids you love them before they go to sleep.’
Indeed each of his bedtime stories, in which Adam and his family and friends embark on a new adventure, finishes with the words ‘I love you.’
‘Between zero and five years of age, the brain is developing,’ Mr Bennett explained. ‘Basically, you’re loading up their software for life. If it’s done well, it will be very robust, and you won’t have any viruses. If it’s not done well, you’ll spend the rest of your life fixing bugs and having crashes and all sorts of stuff.
‘So that’s why I’m really passionate about reading from birth: when your arms are around them, the sound of your voice, the beat of your heart, the warmth of the embrace, the smell of your skin, the security... they just go, “I like this. I’m happy here. I trust this person.”
‘And it just builds from there and then you go out and start having fun as a family,’ he said.
Mr Bennett, from Stillorgan, Dublin, encourages outdoor activities for the walking and talking parts of his mantra.
He said his three other children, two of whom had been born when Adam died, were the main force in helping him and his wife get on with life, adding that we ‘become a different human being’ after such intense grief.
‘It’s just a brand-new world where nothing looks the same, nothing feels normal,’ he said, likening it to ‘rooting around a barren landscape’ after a nuclear explosion or being on an island that you must leave to survive.
‘Eventually, you’ve got to leave that island. You’ve got to be rescued, whether it’s family rescuing you, your own mind, a book, time, whatever it is.
‘Some people stay there forever and never want to be rescued. They pull the shutters down and get back to work and move on and pretend nothing happened. And that’s fine if it’s working for them, but oftentimes it comes back and influences all sorts of behaviours and difficulties in relationships and so on.’
Mr Bennett said he resolved to ‘leave Adam behind but bring him with us at the same time’ in their attempts to move on from the tragedy, with the books central to that.
‘You are going to leave what you thought was reality behind and go into a new place and a new reality,’ he said. ‘And you learn to live there. Nature was one of those places for me as well. Adam is always with me in nature. He’s in every tree, he’s in every sunset, he’s in every sunrise.’
The author and father said he advises grieving people to ‘never worry about moving on, never worry about being happy, never worry about smiling.
‘A lot of people fear that people are looking and thinking they’re not supposed to act like this. But don’t worry about that – be happy; celebrate. It’s positive grieving.’
‘I like this. I’m happy here. I trust this person’