‘How charity helped me cope with dad’s death’
JODIE MATTEY was nine when her father Alan died of bowel cancer, aged 40, in 2006.
Her mum felt felt “she had nowhere to turn for advice and support on how to tell her children that their daddy was going to die”.
Then she was put in touch with Grief Encounter, a charity helping young people to cope with the death of a parent or sibling.
Addressing a variety night at the Arts Depot in Finchley which raised more than £70,000 for Grief Encounter in her father’s memory, Ms Mattey explained how the chaity had assisted her family both at the time and since.
Grief Encounter founder Shelley Gilbert “supported my mum through her pain and came up with ways to talk to us all about what was happening, and how to say goodbye.
“The impact my dad’s death had on us all at that time was so different,” she reflected. “For me it was like one huge rock crashing into my world, blocking my horizon, filling my future with darkness.
“At the age of just six, my baby brother Jack didn’t know the severity of what was going on. He was unable to comprehend the enormity of what had just happened to our family.
“Later, when we started therapy sessions with Grief Encounter, he would consistently draw an image of him and my mum smiling, with the words: ‘I wish mummy could be happy without my daddy.’ On some level, what Jack understood was that if my mum was OK, he would be OK.
“Daniel was 11, the eldest, and didn’t like speaking out. For him, the focus became holding our family together.
“And then there was my mum, who had just told her three children that their daddy had died. She had to balance her own grief and emotions with caring for the three of us.”
The one constant in their lives was Grief Encounter’s family programme, showing “a way to move forward without dad — one-to-one counselling, group workshops, creative therapies”.
Her university thesis was on child bereavement services and she now works at Grief Encounter while studying “to become a therapist myself. Most recently, together with my friend and colleague Daniel Jacobs, I launched Grief Encounter’s GriefSoc, an online community for bereaved young people, giving them a place to connect, grieve and share their experiences.”
The variety night line-up included comedians Simon Brodkin and Tim Vine and TV personality Alison Hammond.