Love, like starlight, never dies - In loving memory of all our darling children gone too soon!

[Bluetinkerbell]

I am the gentle breeze upon your face
The twinkle in the stars
I am the sudden ray of sunshine
That warms your broken heart.

Thank you Whatevertheweather for starting the previous thread! :)

Let this place be a place of support for all of us on this path together, with lots of smiles, lots of tears, lots of hugs and lots of understanding x
A place where 'new' and 'old' bereaved Mums and parents can share their grieve, experiences and memories of their darling children.

Hi Shabs, today has been really rough but tomorrow will be better. and yes ditto to what you said night night my friend xx

ppm good to see you. Love for today, the should've beens are so hard. I can't bear thinking about them, there are so many to come.

You've hit the nail on the head, it changes but from time to time it really does feel like we've walked off the edge of a cliff doesn't it.

Tomorrow is two years since we buried Belle. Tonight it is two years since we saw her for the last time. It feels heavy tonight and so final again, like it did back then. But now its the final day of the seconds, and by Friday we'll be beginning our thirds. Its just forever isn't it. Year after year after year of reliving the important days. It scares me we're into our thirds. She should be a proper little girl now.

But I know I'll feel 'better' by next week, when June is over and we're into July. Tomorrow we'll send another lantern to mark the day.

I wonder how long I will feel I will need to mark her funeral day? Does that change or lose its significance over time? Already this year I wonder how I will feel as we approach her due date (7th Aug), I'm not sure it feels so relevant this year anymore. I'm not sure how I feel about it and I don't know what that means.

Fi - you know what I am like I love my sons birthdays but the remember days are always so hard.

On Saturday my DS3 Matty will celebrate his 28th birthday - except he wont physically be here with us. 28 bloody years - he is 'frozen forever in time' at almost 8 years old. I will be going to my best friends house. I think we are going to have some food and plenty of drinks to celebrate his birthday. I just think of the day he was born.....an easy birth - long labour - but easy birth. Just before 1 am. I could have danced all night and wanted to just come home. Time softens the edges but sometimes older grief bites me on the bum very, very hard. xx

Good afternoon ladies xx

Hi ppm hope today has been more peaceful for you. All the 'dates' are so hard. xx

June will soon be over 'fioled*. I felt calmer once April was over xx

I hope one day I will be able to celebrate Richard's birthday but at the moment I just can't I feel so angry that he is gone. It is not until August and I am already wondering if I should book the day off, I should be working and it is the first time I should be working on one of the 'dates'. I think I will stay at home or I will probably get stressed and snap at someone.

Lavandes - Im sure it took me many years to feel the way I do about my boys birthdays. You will get there love - I promise you that. I still have 'my moments' on each birthday - just now I have got to the stage where I love to think about their special days when they were born xxx

I have to work on Sylvie-Rose's birthday but I am going to keep the day before it free and have a birthday cake and put a helium balloon on her garden.

Can we all despatch our angels to expat's side please and ask them to work whatever miracles they can for little Aillidh. Prayer thread in Philosophy/Religion/Spirituality.

Off to the Sands support group. Quickly wanted to say to Isobel, your shrink was totally wrong. I have a Sands leaflet here, called 'about the other children'. We were given it in hospital. I can either post it too you or type it up and email it to you, it may help? Just PM me if you want, and I will do whatever tomorrow morning (the Mouse is at nursery until 1).

Oh Chip I didn't realise it was Expats DD - I am useless at matching MN names to RL names. This sounds just like my friend Estars little boy a couple of months ago. I hope and pray they can help her precious DD - am keeping them all close in my thoughts xxx No child should have to suffer like this...take care little lady and keep fighting xxx

I have thought of little else for days now , keeping everything crossed that things take a turn for the better very very soon x life really is a crock of shit at times .

So true TW xx

shabs, that's the thing. You don't know who is who between facebook and MN. I am just praying for a miracle. But they do happen sometimes.

Until February, I never realised how gossamer-thin the line between life and death really is. I so hope that Expat's precious girl pulls through. Miracles do happen sometimes Chip, hopefully this will be one of those times.

That's the think, MrsK, we're actually all just flesh and bone and so easily broken, it's actually a wonder that most of us make it through childhood at all. And even when Sylvie-Rose was a scrap of a thing in an incubator, I never thought she'd die. I thought she might have SNs, maybe but I knew I could cope with that. And she didn't even seem to have SNs, in the end. The world is rubbish, sometimes.

The world is indeed rubbish. We all didn't think our daughters will die. But they did! Unfair!

I don't know expat but I'm praying for her and her precious girl.

Thanks MrsY and I already sent you a PM.
Thanks fioled for the link to your blog. It's a lovely blog. I already started reading through some of your post. I love the photos of prints comparisons of B & X.
Hi ppm thanks for also sharing your blog link I already browsed through some of it.

Today is not a good day, been to the mall with DD1 and my Mum. As we are eating lunch in a café a group of mothers with their newborns came in and sat beside our table...I couldn't take their cheerful talks about their happy no sleep always busy with newborn babies lives that I went to the ladies room. As my luck goes, one of them came in and started changing her baby's diaper. That was it! I have to go back & cry inside one of the toilets cubicle. I know it's not good to think about it but right now I hate my new reality. I should have been one of those happy Mums with a newborn. But instead I have to visit a grave daily and I have empty arms. I am in floods the whole day. I will cry myself to sleep tonight Agh!!

Isabel, you will always look at babies/children who are the same age she should have been and think, "I should be that mother"
But I have to say, even though I have to brace myself to meet a new baby girl, it is getting better. xx

Thanks for the good words chip and for showing the flicker of your light.

I can't thank you all ladies enough for helping me to walk slowly in this lonely path.

As I told Mia, all of you ladies that has been walking a bit ahead of me are my guide to this path, a huge pitch black corridor of grief. It's really dark and I feel really alone. But if I look ahead I can see some flicker of lights. The lights that those of you ahead of me are holding and guiding me towards a brighter easier to walk path. And as I step slowly & carefully towards those flicker of lights I can see that I'm not alone. All of us are in this long long corridor too but the rest of you are just a bit ahead of me and you have all somehow found some sort of light. I know it sounds goofy but this is how I feel right now :)

Isabel, that's beautiful xx

I have bitten off more than I can chew today. I have another KIT day, work goes well then I cry all the way home. Also meeting up with my friend and her little girl who was born the day we lost Dexter. I feel so guilty I haven't met her yet but I am in no way ready.

If we ever thought we could lose our children we would cease to function. The fear would be crippling. I feel like I have lost my faith that things will be okay. Even though things usually are really. Again, I don't know Expat, but I will be thinking about her and Aillidh and wishing her well.

MrsY hope the SANDS meeting went well.

Isabel sorry you had a tough day. They are awful when they happen. That is such a lovely way to view this thread.

At the moment it just feels like the year is filling up with awful anniverseries. Dex was concieved around our wedding anniversery, we told our parents at christmas, his 12 week scan was on Valentines day. This was all so perfect when everything was going well but now it is just a massive punch in the face. We have had his birthday, the day he died and his funeral day. His due date is in August. I know one day we will be able to think about him and the happy will outweigh the sad but I just don't see how. I don't feel like I am coping very well at the moment, and I can't let anyone know because they will be worried, but I don't know what to do.

/end self indulgance/

wishing us kind an peaceful Fridays.

Be gentle with yourself, Mecha. Sands meeting went well, but was tough. Have a busy day planned, but hoping to pop in on Peanut again at some point.

Mech - you have to talk to someone about it.

I did all that stuff - I remember glancing around me after Matt was killed. One by one my extended family fell apart. Then, the boss of the family, my lovely Dad had to take anti depressants because he just couldn't cope. I can remember making the decision that it was all up to me now to keep the family going. I clearly remember singing 'If I was a butterfly' at Matts funeral. I sang louder than everybody else and afterwards thanked every single person for coming!! I secretly drank way too much. I didn't sleep for many, many months. I had to dress my DH and walk him to work and I had to drag DS1 kicking and screaming to school. All this 'bravery' still goes on today. Whilst in my head I have massive resentment. I now think to myself 'I should have had my own 'falling apart' moment. DO NOT allow this to happen to you...please....and any other Mums on here who are doing the same thing....please don't - sometimes the rage in my head almost escapes out of my mouth and I have to push it back in and pin my smile on...as I have done for the last 30 years. xx

mech Please listen to Shabs , this is the one time in your life you get to think about yourself completely and utterly , believe me if you decide a couple of years down the line that you can't cope or need time to fall apart people will not be as accommodating . Take this chance that you have now and grab it .

Tell your friend you can't make it today , she will understand , and if she doesn't then she is not a good enough friend to have around you atm .

Speak to work , or even better get your dh to , don't rush back , atm people will understand and help you a lot more than they will later on .

And all this grief will come out at some point , it has to , better to come out now while people are still willing to support rather than later on when people have moved on and probably won't even make the connection anymore .

If I was you I would ring your gp and go and be absolutely honest about how you are really feeling . I know it is hard but honestly in the long term it is easier to do now than later .

Sorry I didn't mean to sound like such a bossy madam

I just know how damaging it is to keep all this stuff building up to exploding point inside of you .

You are so right TW. I rage inwardly but Gawd help the person who gets it, with both barrels. When I do blow it will probably be about nothing significant. There are times when I want to really physically hurt people and I have to 'swallow' those feelings and have a word with myself.

You are very right about the fact that if...a few years down the line...you decide to tell people how you are feeling they are not accommodating. A taxi driver asked me, about 5 years after Matt was killed, how I was. By the time I had told him how I really felt he was sobbing and didn't charge me for my ride home. However he did say, as I got out, 'I wish I had never bloody asked!!' See there is the 'pin on smile' again