Misty breeze wraps about my shoulders, thinly clad. I shiver not, despite the coolness on my skin. Comfort, I now feel. Is it you my precious Angel?

[chipmonkey]

Starting a new thread for our angel babies
Sylvie-Rose 16/8/11 to 4/10/11 too short my love, too short.

Its been 30 years since my precious twin baby boy died and 20 years since my 'mad Matty' was killed but there are times when it bites my rear end so hard that it takes my breath away.

I wouldn't go back to the early days of grief for millions of pounds xx

Oh expat, I read before that your darling Aillidh died just before my Sean. I am so dreadfully sorry - for us both. The inquest condluded that Sean probably died of SUDEP (sudden unexpected death in epilepsy). He wasn't even diagnosed with epilepsy.

For the rest of the country, the summer of 2012 was about the Olympics. Not for us.

shabba I also know about your two precious children. How glad I am that you come on here and offer us help. Thank you. I am so pleased that the early days were worse than now for you. It gives me great hope. I have to survive. I can't contemplate not surviving

yes ive often thought that 2012 is a memorable year for alot of people, but for different reasons for us

It really does help when you know someone who has lost a child. My aunt was wonderful. She, like shabba, lost two of her sons, actually shabs, now that I think of it, eerily like you, one of her sons died in theatre having an operation on his heart, the other in a road traffic accident.
She wrote me a lovely letter, ( one of those people who still write letters) and said "You never get over it but it does get easier to bear".
I held on to those words for dear life last year and still do.

2011 was Sylvie-Rose's year. She was conceived, she was born and she died, all in that one year.
In work, sometimes I'll be talking to a patient and saying "You last had an eye exam in 2011" and I think to myself "Have you any idea what that year means to me?" Of course I don't say it out loud and they are none the wiser.

I found it hard to move to 2012. I felt like I was leaving her behind. We always go down to my Mum's house for New Years Eve. I lit a candle beside a little angel figure at 11pm and kept it burning till 1am. It was my way of keeping her with me.

I think us mums on this thread, together, we are going pull each other through

You all really are inspirational woman

That we will, white!
What's good about this thread is that at least we don't hit rock bottom all at the same time so we can pull each other up.

yeah thats what i was noticing chip
we all go through up and downs at different times
some times i feel v low and like a drain,feel guilty for going on about myself, and sometimes i feel okish and hopefully i can be helpful to others, well at least try my best
as we all do

saintvera I lost my daughter on the 2nd July this year after a year long battle with a brain tumour, so early for us and expat. I am learning to live with getting up every morning and knowing it is another day where I will not see or talk to Flora, so very painful sometimes it is overwhelming, we have 2 other girls so need to keep going for them, they have been through so much. Love to all on this thread. X

hi guys, just checking in with you all.

i'm actually been doing ok today,well good for me actually, went to a friends for lunch was nice. got a spare flower container for ds headstone.
so i can do the flowers at home then just switch containers, as its hard kneeing down inthe churchyard in this weather
plus windy and things blow everywhere.

i also got ds a little teddy staue from the stone masons to sit on ds' headstone, was very expensive, but its suppose to last.
taking it down on sunday with my family and my brothers family

and also the star we ordered for the tree is here, arrived today.
so sitting on my kitchen table theres three things for ds, the teddy, the star and the flower container.
so i feel him close to me today

then when i got home from the school run, a white feather in the livingroom floor, i sure it wasnt there when i left for the school.

i will find the links to the star and
teddy brb

teddy
it is this teddy, but its silver, which i think will look nice next to the silver lettering

star

the star say, ds name, dob, then simply, always loved, always remembered

its really nice, really pleased with it, and was good for 10pounds inc p and p

Today has not been any better after last night.

This morning ds4(3) announced that he misses Dexter, I have been crying on and off all day just thinking about it. Then ds1(9) came home from school and was crying for 30mins saying how much he misses Dexter. Then he said e doesn't want any presents at Christmas as Dexter won't be getting any. I told him Dexter would be getting presents, that we were going to take flowers and balloons down to his grave, this calmed him down a bit.

Was already dreading Christmas, but knowing that the boys are upset about it too, just makes it worse. I was hoping the excitement of Christmas would make it easier for them. They are children, yet they've been through so much, nothing is ever going to be the same for any of us :(

3girlies what a beautiful girl your Flora was. And gorgeous Dexter,My5boys. I am crying for your losses. SUCH early days for all of us. I also have two other children (only one at home) and a step-daughter and I have to survive. My daily goal is to get up each morning and never give up and go back to bed. I also like to walk daily, fast and furiously.

Keeping moving is all I can do.

My DS felt so low he phoned a helpline today while I was at work. The woman who answered was a parent of a special needs child who died several years ago. He got great comfort from speaking to her.

Your posts after my desperate post last night were little lights in the dark. Thank you. Today was bad but not quite as bad as yesterday.

My son, Danny, was too young to remember what he was like after his twin brother died. His memories (as he has got older - will be 31 soon after Xmas) are what we have told him. When Gareth died Danny would spend hours screaming - not crying just screaming. Also he wanted us to hold him all the time - so even at 7 months old he knew something was very wrong.

When Matt was killed Danny was 10. For a few days he was manic. He got his bike and rode up and down the street laughing out loud. I begged him not to but he did it over and over. Then he dragged his mattress into our room and put it at the side of my bed. I then had to hold his hand all night. He started sleep walking regularly. After a few months we went to see a child psychologist. I personally think that she 'saved him.'

We had 'family meetings' - it was often just myself and Danny. I explained that we had to keep going - we had to stick close together and 'sod the world!' He has become a wonderful adult, and a wonderful husband but most precious of all the most amazing Daddy I have ever seen.

Sit with your children and always, always, always tell them the truth about the loss of their sibling and about how you are feeling. Crying in front of them WILL NOT HARM THEM IN ANY WAY. I tried to hide my tears from my son but then said 'You have done nothing wrong....I am having a rotten day and need a love.

5boys - why dont you let your children get a little memory box and maybe get them to do drawings or little notes for Dexter, then they can store them in his box? Or maybe they could each choose a bauble for the tree for Dexter and put them on themselves?

xxxx

Winstons wish

THANK YOU for that post, shabba. I cry in front of my two. DS is so young, he just turned 4 a few weeks ago. I was crying when last we were at the cemetary and he said, 'Mummy, stop crying!' DD2, she'll be 7 in a couple of weeks said, 'She'll cry till she dies.' I told them it wasn't their fault. She said, 'No, I suppose not. It's leukaemia's.'

The man whose son died 11 years ago when he was 20 was there. His son is in the next row. He came up, said he hoped I didn't mind. I said no. He got down to DS's level and said, 'She cries because she misses your sister, okay, wee man?' He seemed to take it in.

Hope to get them some bereavement counselling next year as there's a long wait for it.

Need to get in touch with CLIC because they run a week long holiday at their facility in Ayrshire strictly for the families of the bereaved, completely with play specialists trained in counselling for bereaved children.

There's a lot of charities out there that help sick children with cancer, and that's fantastic, but very few who work with those children left behind when their sibling or loved one actually doesn't make it and dies of their cancer or its treatment.

last week dd asked me, if when adults die, do they go to heaven and not come back either,then she asked me to read we were gonna have a baby but had ana ngel instead, then she sobbed, most people think it does effect her, but it does, massively, it breaks my heart that shes going through this too.
its not what i wanted for her at all.
only thing i try to tell myself, is yes it changes you, but hopefully not always in a totally negative way, i find my dd is very caring, compassionate and sensitive, shes always been a caring girl, but perhaps this makes her more so,
although then again i worry she will be too sensitive!

but i guess all we can do is be as open and honest as possible
and include them in things, make sure they know its noones fault and how much we love them
and try to not feel too guilty they are going through this, as this is certainly not what we wanted to happen either and feeling bad they are suffering won't really help

Is the 'We were gonna have a baby' book worth getting?

I often wonder how X will ever grasp his sister, or our pain, how he'll ever understand when she was before him. I'm so scared he'll think we only have him because we don't have her, because to some extent its true. We wouldn't have been ttc for him when we were if she had lived. God I hate this. Learning about a dead sister shoudn't have to be part of his life.

I'm in a spectacularly shite place at the moment. I'm completely not coping with everyone around me having baby girls and I don't know how to deal with it. I miss my baby girl.

I'm so tired of hurting. Grief going around and around in circles and this is it. Forever circles, forever these lows, B forever dead.

DD2 never cries. She cried only once, briefly, when she came back to Glasgow and I told her that her sister had died. But then again, I hardly did, either, the entire time Aillidh was sick and even when she died. Her cons cried, the transplant doc cried, the cons who pulled her vent cried.

Oh Fi xxx I've been trying to remember 'stuff' - Matt knew that he came along because Gareth had died. I remember saying something like....we were all so very very sad and then you came along and brought the sunshine back into our lives. He also knew how much we loved him for him. Your X will know this as well.

I promise you my friend....as I always do....the raw pain of grief does soften - you never forget but the long journey does get softer and less consuming. Sending my love as always xx

Oh, fio!

I think we all wish who we are now could be different. I know shabba is right, because I heard it from that other woman I was speaking to, whose daughter, then her only child, died of AML 40 years ago and 10 years ago, her own beloved husband, of a brain tumour. She wrote, 'I promise you, if you live so long, the light will come on again, but I can't tell you it's something you ever 'get over', so to speak.' That is enough for me at present.

We all have a child-shaped hole in our lives, don't we? And it is massive, sometimes it stretches to consume everything, at others, it is smaller, and somehow more manageable. But we can never ignore it. It is always there. It is a part of us, of who we are, who we will forever be.

white and fooled A beautiful friend who has lost her husband to cancer, as well as a son at birth, gave us a special book over the weekend called "The Invisible String." It explains to children how we are never alone. "People who love each other are always connected by a very special String made of love. Even though you can't see it with your eyes, you can can feel it deep in your heart and know that you are always connected to the ones you love." Perhaps it might help, as it also makes reference to an uncle who has died, but who is still tied with this invisible string of love to his whole family.

fioled, I find it hard to cope with baby girls too, particularly little girls who are Sylvie-Rose's age. I hate that we don't have pink plastic tat lying around the house, even though I never liked Disney Princessy things and hoped she wouldn't be too keen on them! When she was in SCBU, she had so many blankets, vests and babygro's that I used to do a pink wash when I was doing the laundry. I miss that pink wash! The boys miss having a sister. Ds1 so loved having a little sister. But you never know, fioled, B and X might yet have a little sister.

That book "We were gonna have a baby...." looks like a lovely book. I meant to order it a couple of times for ds4 but the title made me too sad! I might be able to manage to buy it now, though!

expat, for the first few months, I cried and cried and cried. Even if someone had said to me "It's bad to cry in front of them" I don't think I could have stopped. But it isn't a bad thing. If you think about it, if you didn't cry, what would they think? That their sister, one of them, died and it didn't really affect you? I wouldn't like the boys to think that if anything happened to them that I wouldn't be all that bothered! That man you met in the cemetery sounds lovely.

the we were gonna have a baby book, is very sad, it always makes my dd sob, i have thought of hding it, but she only asks to read it sometimes, almost as if she wants to read that when she needs to let a few tears out, so i don't hide it, so shes got it

a good oe thats less sad is no matter what, mainly explaining a parents ove for a child is unconditional even in death
but nowhere near as sad
she does not cry at that one, but can look very thoughtful indeed

mias mummy that reminds me of that poem the cord, hang on i shall go and find it brb

The Cord
Author Unknown
We are connected,
My child and I,
By an invisible cord,
Not seen by the eye.

It's not like the cord
That connects us 'til birth
This cord can't be seen
By any on earth.

This cord does its work
Right from the start.
It binds us together
Attached to my heart.

I know that it's there
Though no one can see
The invisible cord
From my child to me.

The strength of this cord
Man could create
It withstands the test
Can hold any weight.

And though you are gone,
Though you're not here with me,
The cord is still there
But no one can see.

It pulls at my heart
I am bruised?. I am sore,
But this cord is my lifeline
As never before.

I am thankful that God
Connects us this way
A mother and child
Death can't take away!