Jason & Clara: In Memory of Maudie, review: a selfless and valuable guide to grieving parents
'Every parent’s worst nightmare” is such a hackneyed phrase, but how else to describe the experience of Jason Watkins and Clara Francis?
“How can you go to sleep one night, and you’ve got a child with a bad cold and croup, and then wake up the next morning and your child is dead?” Clara asked. In fact, two-year-old Maude had sepsis, which doctors had failed to spot. Jason & Clara: In Memory of Maudie was two things: a study of bereavement, and an effort to raise awareness of a condition that kills an estimated 52,000 people in the UK each year.
It sounds strange to say that the programme was infused with lightness and hope, because here were two people who can still be floored by grief. It has been 11 years since Maude died, but when Clara recalled their final car journey to hospital with a seriously ill Maude, she could still feel the weight of her on her lap. There was a scene of almost unbearable sadness in which the couple opened two bags of Maude’s belongings, which had been stowed in a friend’s attic since her death. One contained a doll’s house, a Peter Rabbit toy and a tiny pair of red T-bar shoes. There were many tears, but we also saw the couple laughing and joking about an impending house move, and remembering Maude in happier times.
Their life did not stop at the moment of Maude’s death, although they can be transported back there in an instant; they have other children, and work, and each other. It felt rare to see those tears flowing so freely, perhaps because the British thing is not to confront grief in all its rawness. But it was valuable, and Clara explained it so well: “It’s about breaking down the taboo of child loss. It’s so grim and unspeakable that people don’t know what to say, people don’t know how to act around you. Also, I want to talk about her, so people will know that she was here.”
The camera kept coming back to two photographs standing side by side: one of Maude, and one of Jason and Clara on their wedding day. It is often said that a large proportion of couples split up after facing child bereavement – how true that is, I don’t know – but here they showed that it is possible to support one another despite grieving in different ways. The programme was a loving tribute to their daughter but it also felt like a selfless gift to other families, a tool to help them navigate through the darkest times.
