MESSAGE FROM CHRISTINE FULTON (MBE)
(COPS Co-Founder & National President)

Dear Friends,

On the 17th June 1994 my husband Lewis was stabbed to death while on duty in Glasgow city centre. Lewis was 28 years old, we had been married for less than two years, and our son Luke was only seven months old.

I really don't remember much of the first few months afterwards. I was determined to be strong for the sake of our son. I probably gave the impression that I was far stronger and coping better than I really was; in fact I seemed to spend more time comforting other people, including the police, than they did me.

A year past and people's attitude towards me changed. Comments such as "I expect you're over it now" and questions such as "Have you met somebody new?" became commonplace, as though reaching the magical twelve month marker made everything alright. Why couldn't they see that behind my calm façade I was falling apart? People had stopped asking if I needed any help so I didn't feel I could ask, and if truth be told, I was a little ashamed; what sort of a failure was I, that I felt worse now than I did when Lewis died? Everybody else seemed to think I should be better, so I convinced myself that there had to be something wrong with me.

About two years after Lewis died, I was walking back from the park. It was a pleasant Sunday afternoon, my son was in his pushchair and my dog was by my side. I was walking up a hill and was so mentally and physically exhausted, that I could hardly put one foot in front of the other. I remember thinking to myself "If only I was dead I would never feel this bad again". Not that I wanted to die, not that I wanted to commit suicide, but at that moment in time, I didn't feel I could go on without Lewis by my side. All I wanted to do was lie down, go to sleep and never wake up again. From somewhere I found the strength to make it up the hill and through that day, and the next and the next.

Several years later Jim McNulty persuaded me to go with him to Washington DC USA to attend National Police Week , and observe a survivor support group called Concerns of Police Survivors, Inc. (US COPS) . I had gone expecting to have an interesting holiday; I didn't expect to gain a lot from the experience as it was now nearly nine years since Lewis had died. For the first time, I found myself in a room full of police widows, and without ever intending to, I told them about the day I couldn't make it up the hill and had wanted to die. A lady sitting next to me nodded and said "Yes, that's exactly how it was for me", and the ripple went round the room as other women agreed. Suddenly I realised that everything I had felt, said, done or thought since Lewis' death was normal. I wasn't nuts I was normal, just nobody had been able to tell me that. A weight lifted off my shoulders that I hadn't even realised was there.

In 2003 I became the co-founder, along with Jim McNulty, of Care of Police Survivors (COPS) . COPS is here to provide the peer support which survivors need to help them rebuild their lives, because we are the only ones who truly understand. Sometimes all it takes is for somebody to listen to you, and to be able to say "That's exactly how it was for me". We all go through the same range of emotions, anger, denial, grief, acceptance. We don't all do it in the same order or in the same time scale, but we do it. If you are a survivor then you are no longer alone. COPS is here for you. It doesn't matter if your officer died recently or many years ago. I hope you can draw strength from this organisation. We are here if ever you need us.

With very best wishes,
Yours truly,

Christine Fulton
(MBE)
Co-Founder & National President