Martin Toy lost his son, also called Martin, in 1984. He recently trained to become an FSID befriender. Here he explains what the training meant for him and how it has allowed him to use his experience to help other bereaved parents:

My son died in 1984. It took me 24 years to decide that I wanted to do something about it, and use my experience of being a bereaved parent. I’d heard about the foundation before but I didn’t get in touch until October 2007. It took me that long to be able to start speaking about it. I just wanted to try and give something back, to try and help other people in that situation.

I found the befriender training a wonderful experience and really helpful. One exercise was telling another person your story and they then told this to the group. I thought that was quite good because that was the first time I’d actually told my story to anybody.
It was also the first time I had spoken to someone who had been through the same experience - even though it has been 24 years since Martin died. I was surprised that I didn’t find it very difficult actually. I found it quite relaxing and that night, I felt quite relieved. I’d gotten over a hurdle in a way.

My other sons knew what had happened but I’d never really spoken to them about it. Every year on his birthday we’d go to the grave yard. But we’d never really talked about it. The eldest one’s 29 now and the youngest is 24 – he was Martin’s twin brother. The eldest would only have been four or five at the time so he only vaguely remembered and the other two didn’t remember anything. We talked about it for the first time after I’d had the befriender training.

I now think my family feel they can talk to me about the subject of SIDS. And I feel that I can go forward and talk to anyone who wants to listen. The befriending training was the key to that.