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.

Mecha I second what MrsKwazi said - you are and always will be Dexter's mum. It's so difficult trying to make sense of this new reality though isn't it?

Mias I hope you get some peace and relaxation with your DH on your holiday.

Shabba sorry to hear about your mum. That must be very hard.

MrsKwazi I don't blame you for wanting to keep every last precious thing that reminds you of your daughter.

I am sorry for all those who feel they are not getting the support or understanding they should be from friends or family. I feel very lucky in that I feel well supported by my family and closest friends but I can imagine it makes it so much harder to bear if you feel they are not there for you.

I am finding it very hard today. I had a couple of ok days last week and felt I was coping ok but now it's just hit me like a tonne of bricks and it feels like too much to bear. It's so exhausting, I just want a break from it.

Mech, one lovely neighbour said to me "You will always have a daughter and the boys will always have a sister"

Sorry, bloody laptop! Pressed post without meaning to!
I meant to finish that by saying you will always have a son, regardless of what happens in the future.

mecha and no-one else in the whole wide world has the title of Dexter's mummy. Just you. That remains true forever and ever.

Matilda grief is just unrelenting, isn't it? You think you are doing ok, and then suddenly, it can bowl you over again. Happens regularly here, although admittedly, less than before. Trashy novels and mindless TV serve well as a break though.

mrskwazii totally understand, every memory is precious. I'm not in that place yet where I can put Mia's toys or clothes away. Not sure when I will be.

chip at your mum, think you were very moderate in your response... but at your DS4's quick mind!!

shabs nothing quite like a mum's hug, is there? you are very generous to say it's maybe better for you that she has forgotten Matty's birthday... but it's not better for you. My gentle FIL had Alzheimer's, a rapidly-deteriorating form, and it was so sad to watch. Truly a cruel disease.

orion children sometimes understand better than adults, I find. There is no social awkwardness about them, and somehow that makes it easier.

My friends were away in France last week, and their little daughter announced that she wanted to cuddle Mia and then had a conversation with her. Seems my little girl is a busy traveller!

Hello Ladies! I've been just lurking for awhile enjoying all your wonderful messages. I feel guilty though just reading and not sending anything in return.

I've been feeling hurt & betrayed by my only 2 best friends this week(they are A & J )And I'm not sure if I should feel this way. You see ladies they've been having lunch together and even had a whole day of play dates with their boys yesterday ( both has a son that are now 4 yrs old, unlike me whose daughter is 8 yrs old). I've sent a message to A asking maybe we could have lunch one day with J this week and she text msg me back that they have been going out for lunch last week but yeah maybe we could all 3 have some lunch one day......grrrrr. They were so supportive of me the first 2 weeks after Isabel was buried but now I'm feeling that they are getting tired of me.

What can I do? They are the only best friends I got :(

I guess we are in the same boat today matilda.
I'm so down today :( I guess I shouldn't have asked my best friend to go out and shouldn't have looked at their facebook pages and learned how they had fun the whole week without me.
I felt so let down.

Isabel after Sylvie-Rose died, my dsis1 and db came to the funeral and then promptly forgot all about me. My SIL on the other hand, phoned me every single day. So did my dsis2 who has SN's. Then I heard from my Mum that dsis1 and db were going away together for a weekend with their respective partners. And I was so hurt that they couldn't actually be bothered with me and obviously had time to spare for each other but not for me. I was very hurt and haven't felt the same about either of them since.

So sorry to hear that chip I can feel the hurt...I'm hurting like that right now for both you and me :( I don't think I can also see them the same way as before. I thought they are my support system but it was just a "only that moment" kind of thing. Everybody who knows them as my Bestfriends were so impressed and praised them of their support for me. Now that everybody has done their job of "mourning with us phase" so are my Bestfriends done with supporting me, that's how I'm feeling right now.

Well now I feel crap! The sister I was just moaning about phoned me about the stone she's making for the garden and it sounds lovely, a fabric image of Sylvie-Rose on a pinkish-hued stone.
She also had a dream about Sylvie-Rose. Pictures of Sylvie-Rose appearing and Sylvie-Rose saying to her "I see everything 'now' " but emphasising that the "now" was in inverted commas because time in the afterlife is not the same as here. And images of us that Sylvie-Rose was seeing.
It sent shivers up my spine.

So, Isabel my sister is not so bad as I thought!

Do you think you could email one or other of your friends and tell them you still hurt and that you still need them? They should be able to figure that out for themselves of course but sometimes people need the obvious pointed out!

If not, well, we get it! We know that you're not "getting over it" and "getting on with things" in maybe the way your friends would like to think you are. We can't give you a RL hug but we can offer you and and even the odd

Love you chip :) Big hugs and a bottle of will surely cheer me up

That is really thoughtful of your dsis! And what a very lovely & touching way of showing you that Sylvie Rose lives in her heart. So is she back in the same level in your eyes as before?

I think I will give my friends time to redeem themselves....one week maybe :)
I did ask them out to have lunch with me this week...isn't that hint enough to tell them I need to talk? its only been a month since ive lost Isabel they should know that it's not that easy & fast to learn how to cope. I'm still navigating in this new reality I'm thrown in. Am I expecting too much from my friends?

chip, so glad that your sister surprised you in a good way this time. Although she has certainly taken her time to show you she cares...

isabel not sure what to say, it's so hard not to be angry and resentful when you are disappointed by friends. But (trying to give them the benefit of the doubt)... perhaps they themselves really don't know what to say or how to act around you yet. They will likely feel guilty and vulnerable. Unfortunately, it seems many people are like this. I have to be totally upfront and say that I may cry or I may smile about Mia, but that I am always willing to talk about her - but also say not to ask me have I am. I have found that by telling people to contact me, to hassle me, to ask me to do things has worked better than when people said "just ask for help" whatever that means - something I would never do. And there was one piece of advice I read, written by another bereaved mother which I found initially very hard to accept, was this "It's not fair, but bereaved parents sometimes need to make the first move with good friends, before a chasm develops to destroy a friendship." This made me angry when I first read it, but I have slowly realised that people do seek guidance on how to act from us, as unfair and hard as this is. Still, not sure this does excuse your friends, given that you did make the first move with them asking to do lunch!!

Isabel, I actually think a lot of people have no experience of bereavement, or if they do it's a parent or a grandparent. And they then think that losing a child is "like that but worse"
But it isn't. When my Dad died, it was like someone pulled a rug from under me. A comfy, fluffy rug that I loved and then it was gone.
When Sylvie-Rose died, it was like someone had ripped the heart out of me. And people don't really know that, they think the grief is severe but they don't realise that you won't be feeling the slightest bit better after a month, the way you would if a parent died. And that after a month, the depth of your loss is often only beginning to hit you.
And I actually think people don't want to know that, either. They don't want to think their friends are broken, they want to think their friends are strong copers who can deal with anything. I have found hardly anyone in RL who actually got that dh and I would never, ever be the same.

Mias, cross posted!

I think my sister is someone who moves on very quickly from a situation and if something isn't right in front of her she doesn't see it. Even before Sylvie-Rose died, I think she used to sometimes forget I existed.

When I was 16, I effectively left home. I went to a boarding school but came home at weekends. Then my family moved to a different county. The logic was that it would be too disruptive for me to go home every weekend because of the amount of time I would have to spend travelling. So my sister left the boarding school to go and live in the new county. In fact, before my parents moved, she started her second year in a new secondary school and stayed with relatives in the new place.

Then my parents moved down with my other sister and my brother and every weekend, I went to stay with my best friend and her family in the "old" county My sister made a whole bunch of friends in the new place and I didn't make any. Then I went to college in Dublin and barely saw my family after that. So even though we always got on well, I think sometimes we're more like cousins than sisters.

I would never, ever send my children to boarding school.

Hi all. Sorry I've not been on much, we're off on holiday on Thursday so we've I've been a whirling dervish; shopping, washing, ironing, packing, cleaning etc!

It's going to be a tough holiday. Although much needed, it was supposed to be a big family holiday, with my mum, my sister and her family and the four of us. Only know it's just the three of us. There's going to be a massive whole. I'm trying not to think of it though, as having a bit of a break is just what we need. J's working so hard atm that I'm quite worried about him.

I'll try and break out of the pile of packing later to catch up and do personals, but in the meantime. Hugs to you all. x

MrsY, dh and I went to Gran Canaria last February. It wasn't a holiday like it should have been, by rights we shouldn't have been able to go away at all but it was better to be away from all the stress of home.

mrsY we also went away, for Christmas, and while it was hard to do, it was the right thing to do. It was a trip which somehow turned into a holiday. Wishing you peace. xx

Hi everyone! I have been lurking. Mainly because DD1 has pulled most of the keys off my laptop (including the space bar), and because of this sometimes I can use the keyboard, sometimes it pouts! It is also very difficult typing with some visible letters, and the missing letters rubber things.

Firstly shab. A very belated birthday wish for Matty. I'm sorry it's so late, but I have been thinking of you xx

I've also been very down, and not wanting to talk much. A year ago Sunday, we found out that we were expecting another daughter. Remembering how happy I was then, has really brought me down, and I'm shocked at how raw my feelings are right now.

Even when I'm not able to post emotionally, I'm thinking of you all xxxx

Tami, I understand that. I actually think it's like a punch in the stomach to remember how happy we were. Even when Sylvie-Rose was in an incubator in NICU, I remember being so happy to have a little girl, once we knew ( knew? thought we knew?) she was going to be OK.
What really brought it home to me was my friend who was exactly the same as us, four boys, new baby girl posting on FB and his wife making jokes about her new dd never being able to bring a boyfriend home with all the big brothers. And I remembered making that joke myself and feeling so high with love for my beautiful family. I know if she had been a boy, it would have been jokes about finally have a five-a-side football team and I would still have been very happy.
I think the sudden memory of the happiness was worse than the sadness that had gone before, I had almost forgotten about the happiness, and then BAM! it hit me. And the depth of the loss was so deep.

Morning girls xx

Morning, shabs xx

tami and chip they are overwhelming, those sudden memories of happiness, of innocence, aren't they? Yet at least we had those moments, and we can appreciate the love and excitement. We weren't blase, nor did we take our babies for granted - we wanted them very much. That should be cherished. x

mias that's such a beautiful thing to say. Your posts are always deeply moving, you have such a way with words and express things that resonate with incredible grace and poignancy xx

Hello everyone. Hope you're all OK. I really, really hope that Expat's daughter pulls through. Am praying so very hard that she turns a corner.

mrskwazii yes, so much love and strength for Aillidh and expat being sent here too. Quite a bit of crying too. But feel awkward - I don't want thanks for my support there, I just want Aillidh to get better.

split just words straight from the heart. Glad you liked them.