Ep. 3 The Memory Maker and the War Correspondent - Helping Families Process Loss
Keywords
Deb De Wilde, social workers, work, family, photos, war correspondent, interview, stories, home, listening, hospital, neonatal death, photograph, birth
MF
Mim Fox
0:07
Welcome back to social work stories, you're with myself Mim Fox and my co host, Lis Murphy. And we're really pleased that you've decided to listen to yet another one of our episodes. Today, we're going to sit with some stories of quiet dignity, and how, as a social worker, we actually are able to sit in the beautiful space of silence, and hold people in the dignity of these really important moments in their lives. Lis, you had the unbelievable privilege of conducting this interview, how was it for you, maybe you can introduce the interview to our listeners.
LM
Lis Murphy
0:52
Okay, so I'll start with a confession. The person I interviewed, I have been a fan of for quite some time. And this is because this woman is a pioneer in the area of neonatal death. And her name is Deb De Wilde. And I interviewed her last week. And it was such a privilege to sit with her. I think the interview all went for 90 minutes, it felt like it was no time, I could have just listened to her for many, many more hours. And I'm so pleased, we've got her because there would be lots of people working in the field of women's and children's social work that just similar to me know about her pioneering and the current work that she's doing. But there'd be a lot of people that are practicing that have never heard of her. And I feel like I wanted to honour her 40 years in this field, I think it was for at least 30 or 40 years. And she's told some beautiful, poignant stories that we're going to share tonight. And I'm really excited about that.
MF
Mim Fox
2:10
It's actually amazing to sit in the presence of someone that you admire so much, and social workers do such incredible work, actually, when you're sitting with someone who can create the magic that can happen in an emotionally vulnerable or sensitive space is actually amazing.
LM
Lis Murphy
2:30
And so, like, I like to use the metaphor of the woodturner, or even the chef, right. So we are now in the presence of someone who's been honing her skills for 40 years. So this is the other thing to someone who has been doing it day in day out, and they're a master in their field. So it is amazing to have her share some of the things that she's been doing, not just 40 years ago, but today what she's doing in this space.
MF
Mim Fox
2:59
Yeah, I would agree. I would agree. What we're going to do now is we're going to play an excerpt from the interview, where Deb speaks about the skills that she uses in working with families when a neonatal death has occurred, we're going to then have a chat about it. And then we might play a couple of stories that she talks about to illustrate some of the work that she's done and the beauty that she sits with with these families.
LM
Lis Murphy
3:29
Mim, I wanted to mention the fact that we're actually naming Deb, in this particular episode, because mostly our social workers going to be anonymous. But we decided that we would name Deb and she's quite happy for us to, and it's because of the pioneering work that she's done in this space. And it's probably because anyone who's listening to this, who knows her will absolutely be able to know who she is. But I think it's a way of honoring the work that she's done for 40 years in the area of neonatal death and loss and grief. So that's the reason I think.
MF
Mim Fox
4:08
That's beautiful. And also yes, she has a distinctive voice. So enjoy, and we'll be back with you in a minute.
SW
Social worker
4:24
It's hard for people, I guess, to believe that there was a time where people just didn't take photographs, like all the time. So this is a time when we used Polaroid. So yes, we we started off with Polaroids and I guess we also did things like ink prints a baby's hands and feet that would have been seen as being most unusual. But people love those things. People really love to trace those little tiny indentations of a baby's hand or foot as it’s set out on a piece of paper. So yes, those things are case of actually taking as many photos as you could, not just one Polaroid. Because of course, again, the cost of these things was significant for hospitals. And as I say, people just didn't carry cameras around. One of the nicest things this hospital ever did was to give me a film camera, which I still use, because I do love film. But yes, over the years, I've taken a lot of photos.
And then with the coming along of digital, now I would routinely take hundreds of photos when a baby is born, because again, the practice has expanded. So I'm privileged enough to work in settings where it would not be at all uncommon, if anything would be pretty standard. For families, I see to spend several days with a baby. And that we might, would very often be presented baby's birth and photograph the baby's birth, that we would photograph all kinds of things, I guess, as you'll be away, there are many people taking photographs now, including a wonderful organization called Heartfelt. My photos are sometimes like that but more often, I'm more a war correspondent. I, I like to capture what I think matters most to people. And I believe that that's the raw emotion of the time. And I would be a very sensitive photographer in that. I'm aware that sometimes I want to pick up the camera and take a photo. But I have to be a social worker at that time, whatever that term actually means in that moment. But I know that people value very highly the photos in all their wellness and and the ugliness of that is sometimes there as well as just the most stark beauty where you see people just totally open to the moment.
Some of those photographs sometimes capture the people around them, and I can think bring easily to mind some images of some of the obstetricians, one in particular, where the obstetrician is looking right at me in the camera. And she's holding this little baby that she's just delivered by emergency caesarion section and the baby has died. And we knew the baby had died at the time. But the look in her face as she looks at me as she holds this mother's baby, it is very, very beautiful image it means a lot to the obstetrician, it means a lot to the family to see their baby treated with such reverence and heartbreak by that woman who would have done anything she could have made the outcome different for the family. So the photographs I think, are very, very important in the sense of creating a whole story.
LM
Lis Murphy
8:36
Mim, it's so interesting, the power of photography now in the area of neonatal death. And again, Deb has pioneered in this in this area. I remember maybe two years ago, she came and she showed my colleagues and I some of the photos that she has taken. And when she calls herself a war correspondent that is so true, because the way she captures emotion is unbelievable. In fact, her black and white photography would not be out of place in an art gallery in Oxford Street, I reckon. She captures I remember the face of a father on one of these photos, and the pain that he was expressing in that photo in that one moment. You couldn't put words to it, but it captured grief. It was so beautiful. And so her approach to photography, as she said is quite different to the work that's done by a wonderful organization called Heartfelt and I just thought I'd tell people what that is. So Heartfelt is a volunteer service run by photographers who volunteer their services and they will come in and take photos of the family with the baby who's passed away. And they are beautiful. But they seem to be, in my opinion a little bit more, I guess they position the baby and the parents and it's it's a little bit like what you would do with your photos with the kids, you know, it's a little more staged with it a little bit more staged. So Deb's work tends to be more, she's just flicking away with the camera very subtly, throughout the birth, and post birth time.
MF
Mim Fox
10:36
I love this notion of a war correspondent. Because actually, if you think about the environment that the family is in, when they're in this really critical time, there's noises going on around them. It's a strange environment for them. Their emotions are so heightened in that space. It really is that level of crisis that they're experiencing. And then Deb is just taking photos of what is naturally occurring around her. It's very similar to what a war correspondent would actually be doing, isn't it?
LM
Lis Murphy
11:13
But with the added challenge of also having to do the social work? Yes, the stuff in there to be doing the support, the counselling the I mean, you and I've talked about this before, where else do you hear a conversation of death and birth in the one conversation? Yeah, two very opposing forces that a social work has to actually talk about with a couple. Yes, amazing stuff. So she's having to do all of that on top of taking these amazing photos, so that this family have some contact & connection memory of this little person that was in their life fleetingly. But she's helping to do that through memory making.
MF
Mim Fox
11:59
It's actually about containing the emotion, isn't it? So she's containing it in herself as the social worker in her communication with the family. But she's also containing it in a photograph. And that's quite quite an interesting combination. It's almost emotion through art.
LM
Lis Murphy
12:18
I think you're right, it is it is actually. And when she showed this, these photos to the social work department, she interwove stories with it with the with the clients permission. But anyway, so that the lights are off in this room. And this is true, a big department of pretty crusty social workers have been out and about for quite some time. Yep. At one point, there was this absolute silence. And then every so often, thered be these (sniff, sniff noises) and she's actually moved them to the point that I think they're having a few tears, and sure enough, we turned the lights on there a few people kind of rubbing their eyes. And there wasn't a sound in the room for I reckon a few seconds, she moved the social workers to tears.
MF
Mim Fox
13:12
That is beautiful. That's amazing. What I was loving about that excerpt from the interview was that story about the obstetrician, Lis, and how, when she used the word reverence, the obstetrician held that little baby and use the looked at it with reverence. And I thought, you know, in that moment, those parents are probably feeling like, was this baby, nothing was this life? Nothing. Right? Only important to them. But actually, that obstetrician has held that baby and communicated something that only the look on their face could communicate. I just think that's actually beautiful. And the fact that Deb could capture that in the photograph, so that the parents as they move on in their lives from here on, they'll always remember that little baby, and they'll remember that day. Absolutely, always. But what they're likely to forget is those moments of actually the obstetrician looking at their baby or their child in that way. And I think that is so incredibly special.
LM
Lis Murphy
14:25
I agree. So I think the next part of today's episode is listening to a couple of stories about families who Deb worked with ,and I'll let the stories tell the tale and we'll come back and have a chat about it.
MF
Mim Fox
14:42
Just before we play it. Let's do the disclaimer is just for all our listeners out there. And we're conscious by now that it's not just social workers listening to our podcast. Thank you everyone for that. But also important to say that actually these stories are as we've said about neonatal death. So there may be some images, Deb is very evocative in the way that she speaks and paints a beautiful picture. But that does mean that she may be communicating some images that our listeners may not be ready to hear. So just the disclaimer, please take care of yourselves in the listening of this.
SW
15:30
We could also do many things like get out of the hospital, for many families, to take the baby out into nature, for the baby to know, the air and the sun on its face. That's definitely many families is very valued. To record all those things, the bath of the baby, the world of the babies, here, an image of that baby's ear, all those things that you, you feel so much over time, you'll forget. And you do forget, I think now trying to remember, the face of my grandmother had been dead a very long time. I look like her in the morning mirror, increasingly as I age, and that is both a shock and a lovely thing for me. But you'll understand what I mean when you you dream that baby into your consciousness. And you wonder, his hair, my nose, please not my nose, all those funny things that people laugh about. And then the enormity of it, death, and a birth or a birth and a death. And then this short time with this little person. And so many other things happening around those constant interruptions that come with a hospital, to be able to commit all the way to memory, difficult to have that photographic record, never ever enough. But but it's a bridge, I think of being able to connect people with the baby.
Again, I'm thinking of a family a little while ago, where they had a baby who died under most unexpected circumstances, it was not anticipated that the baby would get into any trouble. The baby went to another hospital, the mother followed shortly after, the baby died within about 24 hours. And then we negotiated that they would come back where they spent time with their family and with their other little daughters who were 4 and 2. And then it just seemed, after about five or six days it was a pretty natural thing to consider taking her home. So we came in one evening, the day before her funeral service. And we just trailed out of the car and packed everyone in the car. With a two year old having as two year olds will, just a melt down saying “it's not easy being two,” and it wasn't. And I think they just pulled out all the mattresses into the lounge room and everyone slept on the floor as you do.
And in the back of the car was the little woollen nest that she was to be placed in. And so they went from home, had the night of fitful sleeping, woke so that they could spend sunrise with her tucked her in, and then they would have driven in their funny little bomby car and taken Mary to their family church for a service and then onto her place of burial. Yeah, look, I think it was a very meaningful additional part for them. And if they hadn't been able to do that, I think that they would have completely understood and and accepted that it wasn't an option. But for those people who feel that it's what they need to do. It can be a remarkable thing. And we would do that often with the assistance of a funeral director.
So again, I think of another family who were here from their home in Ireland, learned midway in the pregnancy that their baby had a devastating but relatively uncommon complications of pregnancy where parts of the amnion, part of the, the additional soft lining of the placenta, part of it sort of broken it off and twisted around parts of the baby so that he, his poor little body was a bit of a jumble. But this child was a remarkable little boy, and, again, against all predictions, was born alive. A caesarion section. And really just lived his little life in the arms of his mother on her chest. And it just really just fluttered away. But he was the most unusual little character, but actually charming, utterly charming, and really adorable. And again, we spent quite some time in hospital with him. They had a little tiny, tiny girl at home. So again, on that last night, we packed everything up. And we arrived at their house, when I say we, the lovely funeral director, myself and the little casket and went to the house and drank tea and passed him around and admired again, all the quirky features that made him this totally unique little person, including the fact that his his heart was on the outside of his, his chest. So we needed to just manage that so that we could handle him without injuring him, even though we all knew that he was beyond injury. Who is beyond hurt. But again, for them to spend that night, and to do what, again, just felt culturally and religiously, right for them to have a night of, of wakefulness in prayer. And to wrap him in, arrange him and to do the casket up to know that that was a little baby in that container that they were the people that that did everything that they could for him, they handed nothing over to a stranger, no matter how can that stranger might be? There is something that emboldens people, there's nothing you can't do in life if you've done this.
MF
Mim Fox
22:45
You know, what gets me about that segment is, is how incredibly well, Deb remembers the detail of the people that she's worked with. And not just the parents, but she's actually speaking about this baby in a way that I feel listening to that, that I actually understand the personality of the baby, that actually, there's a life in this moment that otherwise could be shrouded in the death. And actually, there's so much life there.
LM
Lis Murphy
23:22
Yeah, that's so true. I hadn't thought about that. But you're absolutely right. And she must have a remarkable memory for the detail of the look of that baby, even down to their name, but like, I guess for me mean, the image that I have is of this very brave form of social work, because it is brave. I'm, I'm blown away by the fact that she talks she supported that family to take their babies home. And this is not a common practice. So it would have been very common two generations ago when we were having our babies at home and if they died, they were at home with us. Yeah, that's right. But then we took birth into the institution of the hospital. Deb has supported families to go back home with their babies and that is really cutting edge stuff. She's been doing it for years. I have not seen that I must say. But as I listened to her describe how she supported the family to lay down more memories and get that baby back home was breathtaking for me.
What about that image of transporting that baby in its little woollen nest I loved that and then then the family actually creating the the mattress is all on the floor so they can all sleep with that baby together and experience a sunrise with their baby stunningly beautiful. Absolutely. And the And the way that they were then able to, with the support of the funeral director, drive that baby to the funeral.
MF
Mim Fox
25:05
You know what it is, she's brought a sense of peace, to social work practice where social work practice is usually so chaotic. You know, so many of our colleagues work in environments and organizations, where the practices and the culture are all about the pace of the work, and the noise and the politics and having to move as quickly as you can. And what she's done is actually remove this family from that environment, but also remove herself from that environment. So there's a freedom to her practice, where she can actually sit with this family in a completely different way. You know what she was talking about being there in that room. And she said she was there with the funeral director. But she didn't have to know from the way she described it. We knew. Right, she was right there with them every step of the way. That I think is actually amazing. And it actually demonstrates how to sit with a family in a way that often we talk about needing to sit with a family. But she's actually shown how you do that in practice.
LM
Lis Murphy
26:20
She sure has. And in a way that is quite tailored to the need of that family. Yes. So did you notice that those two stories she told one was an unexpected death, and one was an expected death. And despite that, she was still able to pretty well incorporate the same strategies. And that's that is a real gift and a skill to that she's actually been able to provide for that family. The last sentence is the one that I think I wanted to also highlight Mim, and that was, “they handed nothing over to a stranger.” Yeah. And again, she facilitated that. That was a social worker, facilitating agency and empowering a family to get very actively involved in their baby's I guess, death passage.
MF
Mim Fox
27:18
Yes, that's right. That's right. She allowed them to own that experience, actually. And death is one of those experiences that often is taken away from us. Absolutely. So to be able to empower the family to own that, that allows them to hold that memory in a very special way going forward. Yeah. Look, what an absolute privilege. I'm so jealous that you were the one who got to sit with Deb in this interview. And I hope going forward in these podcast episodes, were able to revisit some other segments from that interview.
But now I think it's time to say goodbye. And thank everyone for listening. Thank you to Ben Joseph, our producer, as always so skilful behind the scenes, and our now assistant producer, Justin Stech. Everyone will remember from episode one that he was our social work student. He's now graduated. And he's now our assistant producer, which is fantastic. So our podcast family is growing. It is indeed so thank you everyone, and we will see you at our next episode. Bye.