Less than a year ago, Romano Misiedjan from Waalwijk lost his twelve-year-old son Delivio to lymphoma. No matter how hard the blow was, Romano wants and must continue. To show how he does this, he is working on a documentary. “I want to show how I found myself again after the death of my son,” he says.
When he arrives at the playground where his son used to play on a sunny day, the normally talkative Romano suddenly falls silent. “Right now I can see how I used to push him on the swing. That will come to mind,” he says.
Although he often manages to stay positive, that is not always possible. “I feel the emotion and I just let it be, even if I have to shed a tear,” he admits honestly. “You shouldn’t hide it away, but you’re not supposed to walk with it all day.”
Romano explains how he tries to stay strong and direct his thoughts to positive memories. “That is something my son also passed on to us,” he explains. “When he was on his deathbed, he was actually not going to wake up. But he did. Then he said: ‘You have to stay strong’. Those words stay with me every day. Now I try to think of his crazy pranks and his beautiful smile.”
“The reactions you get from people are incredible.”
He also tries to pass on his way of dealing with loss to others, on his social media, through a documentary and through his own coaching company. When Romano scrolls through his posts on Instagram, one of the comments catches his eye. He reads to him: “Such a great loss in your midst. Taking away a child is the heaviest thing you have to bear every second as a parent. I feel your pain and I give you a lot of love.” These are messages that give the Waalwijker strength: “The reactions you get from people are incredible.”
Delivio’s disease
In April 2023, the Misiedjan family was told that their son Delivio had lymphoma. The 12-year-old boy from Waalwijk is an actor and at that time already known to the general public as Manu in the soap series Goede Tijden Slechte Tijden. He enters a difficult treatment process, the cancer goes away, but later returns in a worse variant.
He is also treated for that, but after 2.5 years the family is told that Delivio will die. He will then have holes in his lungs and will not make it.
The blow to the family is enormous. “It’s like your world is collapsing,” Romano reflects. “You no longer know who you are. Ultimately you don’t even want to go outside, you don’t want to see people and you can’t control your emotions. The pain and loss are intense.”
Still, he learns to deal with the pain and finds ways to think of Delivio in a positive way. “It started with adding some structure to my life,” says Romano. “I applied for a part-time job and was accepted, I started exercising four times a week and started reading a lot about mindset. It does not happen automatically, but in very small steps. Only one percent is added at a time, but over a long time you change a lot.”
“I hope people get inspiration from it.”
He wants to show how he did all this in the documentary, which he is making together with filmmaker Daniel Scotch. The two already filmed the first part in Suriname, where Delivio liked to visit. Romano does not yet know when the documentary will be shown. “We have the half of the financing completed and we are working with various channels to see if they want to broadcast it.”
Romano already knows the purpose of the big project. “I want to show how I got myself back after the death of my son and I want to show who he was. I hope people get inspiration, courage and strength from my story. I hope they see that life can knock you down, but you can always get up and move on.”
