Letter from a mother

To All at Rainbows,

In December 1997, my partner left myself and our two little girls without any previous warning. Can you imagine how I and my little girls, who were aged five and two at the time, felt? My self and my eldest girl were both devastated and didn't have a clue what was about to happen or what the future held for us. It took me months to get over the shock of him leaving me, and my eldest girl was going through a very rough time.

Then our local school introduced Rainbows.

I put my daughter's name forward as I strongly believed she needed someone to talk to. I did my best at the time, but as I was dealing with my own grievance, it was very hard for me to support her without expressing my own feelings and not show anger against their father at the same time.

As my daughter progressed through Rainbows, I could see an immediate change within weeks. I found this sudden change reflect on myself. Although there were a lot of different states in which I was completely unprepared for. At first, she showed a lot of anger which was totally out of character. Then she became very attached to me; more so than before. I became worried about this but after I spoke to her Facilitator, I was reassured that this was all part of the growing and healing process.

But the day I realized that Rainbows had made a real difference to her life and her outlook on our situation, was the day she walked into a room and found me crying. As I was about to do what I always did whenever this happened (which was to wipe away my tears and pretend nothing was wrong), she said "Mommy, please don't stop crying because if you do then all that pain will stay inside you for a very long time." I looked at my five year old girl and realized that she had just gone through a very tough lesson in life and at a very young age, yet she had learned to survive in a very grown up way. I felt so selfish and immature.

This had an immediate effect on me. I began to realize that life still goes on, where as beforehand I was about to give up. I was so pleased with the result of Rainbows, that I decided that once I worked through my own pain, that among one of the many things I was going to do in changing my life was to become a Facilitator to give back to other children who need support. It would be my way of saying thank you to those who had helped my daughter and myself mature and move on in life.

I have just completed my first cycle of Rainbows and I want to thank you all. Firstly for giving hope to my own little girl and secondly for giving me the strength and knowledge to help others. THANK YOU.

Gwen McConvey
Dublin, Ireland
May 1999