It is not a straight line. We sit together. I stack three stones upon each other, remembering. We eat apples and chat about the old groynes, the lighthouse, the bay on our doorstep. It is something I often do, never forgetting. Around the corner there is a girl with her grandparents, exploring the skies for birds. Today that doesn’t sting. Instead, we are exploring ourselves, walking around our local coast, with a desire to know places, to make them part of our home, our lives. Today isn’t about what we don’t have, but what we do, each other, a home we share with two wonderful cats and the ability to be curious, to be present, to be alive.

Walking now is, on the whole, not a process of escape, of moving through space, to an unknown and endless destination, in search of relief from the pain of the grief for our lost children, but an expression of desire to know places. Walking has returned to be about exploring, to noticing the layers of nature, of history, of life in the places we are part of, not apart from. For so long I removed myself from where I belong, through a sense of being an outsider. I am shaking that unhealthy sense off, as I connect to myself, to my wife, to the nature around us - to our everyday as it is. Movement is no longer about creating distance, an absence, between my pain and the reality around me - the hauntings have lessened – it is becoming about acceptance, about creating a life that is beautiful, despite not having children. We are making new memories, memories to smile upon.

There are days where I get lost, where the clag descends, where I stand alone in a storm, exposed on a hilltop, but more often now, I am able to pick up my map and find a way back. That is acceptance. That is moving on. It is not a straight line.

Andy Harrod

(In)visible childlessness