Miss my son so much

[LilyTheSavage]

My beautiful middle son died on 10th August in a tragic and needless accident. It's three months today and I feel just as bereft and weighted with grief and sorrow as I did the day he died. It's very hard to bear. There must surely be others who have had this happen too.

Exactly that. I can't cope at all well with being on any sort of high place. Looking down and just wondering. Just wondering. No answers. No reasons.

I should be feeling super-chilled after a really lovely holiday with my DH (and in some ways I really am) but it doesn't alter anything really.

Some things just can't be shared with anybody you love.

raised to you too.

Just popping in to see how you are. In the lead up to Christmas and all things family and supposedly celebratory it can be hard to maintain the mask. I hope you have carved out some quiet and peaceful time for yourself to remember your beautiful boy and allow yourself to grieve openly and fully. It's hard to do and I often find I haven't made the time for myself hence it can all go quite pear shaped around this time of the year. I'm always thinking of you and raising my cup to you and Paddy. I'm wishing he was here with you and often struggle with the unfairness of life and the lack of reason as to why such wonderful people are taken from us. Love and hugs to you.

I bought a beautiful candle today and have lit it in memory of Paddy and DD. Thinking of them both a lot at this time.

Thank you dear Mojito.

It's an especially difficult time of the year to be honest. I feel fragile and bereft, but I'm extremely good at just pretending to be ok. I think that more than two years later people expect me to be ok, and it's just easier to pretend. (If that doesn't sound strange). I don't want to share my emotions or thoughts with anybody as it just rips me apart.

I sometimes think I'm going mad.

I completely understand. The world has moved on for others but I am still stuck in the same time zone of grief with the same feelings going around on the cycle they are on. That is why I so appreciate this site. Others suffering as we are do understand and it is such a safe place to come and share. I don't feel I can have those conversations with others who haven't experienced what we have. Do take care of yourself. I'm lighting the candle again today. It just feels right.

I've just finished my coffee and thinking about our loved ones. I've also sat and just enjoyed being with my two boys. The loss of DD has certainly made me appreciate them all the more and makes me thankful everyday to have them.

Checking in to see how you are. I can feel the change in my emotions, but am unable to stop them and I can also see the change in my behaviours and reactions to others around me. I'm guessing you're the same.

Hope you are coping as best you can. It's certainly not the time of year to be "happy" when we are without our wonderful children so we just do the best we can.

Hi lily, thinking of you, hoping you're doing 'ok' lots of love xxx

Hi Mojito and jen

Thank you for checking in.

I am standing and up and dressed and to all intents and purposes am functioning every day, but just feel so incredibly sad. I still cry at some point every day for no particular reason. I have become an incredibly good actress and can put on a damn good act of being "ok" but it never lasts for very long. I can't say to somebody that I'm not really ok because I feel as if I'm just being sorry for myself and looking for pity. And I'm not. It's just how I feel.

Hope you're both doing ok, but I guess it's probably the same for you.

Just sending you both love. XXX

I'm following in your footsteps. I get up paste a smile on my face, pretend to be festive for all those around but am quietly dying bit by bit on the inside.

I always find it hard to cry as no matter how I feel it just never seems to be enough to remember her by. I know the tears are good but they sure can be hard to get through.

I'm starting to feel especially fragile at the moment. I can't settle or find anything that soothes in any way.

Love to you.

What amazing actresses we are. I think that pyjamas, hot chocolate and shite tv are the way ahead for the evenings. I get exhausted after being busy with the builders and pretending all day. The inside of me and the outside just don't match up.

Sometimes I feel as if I could cry all day, but the tears just don't come. It's as if they've run out.

I had Gin & It the other evening. It was good medicine and helped me to sleep. Made me feel quite giggly when I was Skyping with my cuz. She was probably fooled. I feel as if I can switch a smile on and off.

Luckily Christmas has pretty much by-passed Brittany and I can pretend (almost) that it's not happening. There are no decorations up in my house (partly because it's a building site, but partly because I don't feel festive or jolly). Nothing settles or smoothes really. I'll have to put a good face on things when I go back to the UK but it's just so tiring. I do have "up" moments and can fool everybody but it's all only ever an act. Stronger moments are better than none.

I've received two Christmas cards. One from a dear friend who had written it to "MrLily, Lily, DS1 and his Fiancee, DS3 and always remember the gorgeous Paddy." Made me cry.

If it wasn't for my darling boys I'd stay here and just pretend that nothing was happening.

Sending you a huge hug, you don't fool me!
Pj's and shite tv it is. Xxx

Aw thanks jen.

Yesterday was a day for ignoring the telephone and just being quiet. The stronger days will come around again. Just need to keep out of the way of fuckwits who drag me down. It's easy enough to do that on my own without the input of some people.

Love to you my lovely friend.

I have been struggling.

I was buying things for the stockings of my other two DS and bought flowers and a little Christmas tree to take for Paddy. The contrast of this just knocked me over. It was a knife to my heart and I felt very low.

Very late on Christmas Eve I took my heart-shaped wreath and flowers that I'd done and went to the graveyard. I had a small Christmas tree with pink lights on and some candles to burn through the night. It was cold. My boy's grave looked beautiful. Other people had already been and there were some little chocolate reindeer and a santa and other flowers. How can I be reduced to playing Santa in a graveyard on Christmas Eve?

New Year was hard. It's just more time and another year further away from Paddy.

I am the mother of three boys.

Now I only have two.

Of course you've been struggling Lily, a graveyard at Christmas is such a poignant place. And you surely did make his grave look beautiful and you're in no way reduced to playing Santa by being there - you're honoring him and being close to him and that's a very important thing to do.

My dad (who was old) died last summer and we've done the same thing with his grave - a wreath, a glittery little real Christmas tree and some lovely winter flowers. And the brief lighting of a candle in a strong wind! It was so precious to be standing there over him even though he's gone somewhere else (I really feel that he has).

I know it's different and not the way things should be; your children should be burying you. But keep him with you, think of him as much as you want, talk to him and remember that you'll always be the mother of three boys.
And carry on living, because that is what Paddy would want.
God bless x

A beautiful,kind and strong mum of 3 gorgeous boys you will always be. Sending you a huge hug and lots of love xxx

Thinking about you and Paddy, wishing everything was different, love to you Lily xx

Thinking of you more than normal lately. I made a special cake on the weekend with almond praline and all to go on top. As I was making it I was thinking of Paddy and could just picture your big strapping lad coming in from working outside and enjoying an enormous slice. I hope it doesn't seem weird how I think of him. He feels like such a part of my family and like one of my kids.

The way you remember him, share stories about him and continue to keep his memory alive has meant that even someone (me) from the other side of the world now holds him dearly in her heart and he is never far from her thoughts.

I hope some of the darkness has lifted, the fuckwits have fled and the sun is managing to somehow peek through the winter you are having. Wishing I was there to give you a great big real hug. I'm not sure I would actually let go if I was with you.

Stay safe.

Thank you for posting jen and Mojito.

I've been away for a couple of weeks and haven't been able to post.

I love how you always think of Paddy when you make cake Mojito. That really makes me smile. I drank mojitos on holiday and toasted you and your darling girl.

It's strange how even when I'm actually having a lovely time there is always this underscoring of sadness. Often when I'm swimming I think of Paddy lying face down in the water and everything comes rushing back like it was yesterday. I haven't slept well and have been having a lot of very busy dreams where I'm racing about and I'm shouting and screaming and I wake up exhausted.

I've been reading a book written by bereaved parents in which they said that their children wouldn't want their names to be associated with pain and sadness. That resonated. I'd like to think about Paddy and not feel weepy and sad. He deserves more but I don't know if I can do that yet.

My sweet friends. Thank you.

and especially

Lily, the fact that those words resonated in you is important. Paddy's legacy of love to you will evolve - in his trees, the bluebells, the rugby games, in his brothers, in so many other ways - as they will be parts of your life that bring him to you vividly, and you will cherish these things even more because they are the natural ways to keep him in your life.

Thank you MiaAlexandrasmummy. The words keep popping up in my mind and I felt stronger and less fragile yesterday.

It's Paddy's birthday very early next month and his friends are having a hockey match in his memory at the end of February. I love that they are remembering him. Makes me smile and weep at the same time.

Today is a day for sitting quietly and thinking of our two beautiful children. I'm off to make coffee and sit with this melancholy mood I have.

Thank you Mojito
I am going back out into the garden and will think of all our beautiful babies.... big and smaller.....

It's a beautiful spring-like day here today and makes the loss even sharper and crueller.

I'm preparing Paddy's memorial for the end of the month near to his birthday. We will have a gathering by his grave, then lunch and a hockey match. His friends are organising the hockey and have new shirts with his name and birth date on. How lovely. How unfair that they're remembering him instead of him playing the annual match with them. I'm glad they haven't forgotten him but it's emotional and difficult.

Finally the tears have come tonight. It's stupid how they bottle up and then just overflow. It is wonderful that he is remembered and awful that he even has to be remembered in this way.

I had a lazy day avoiding life today by immersing myself in shite tv. Avoidance really achieves nothing but is sometimes necessary for our sanity.

Hugs for you at this time.

Maybe I should have ditched the flowers and just sent you
Raising a glass to you this evening and sending love. Hope the tears bring a little release and peace following the storm.

Lily - Can you bear to tell me the date of Paddy's birthday?

I would very much like to be able to take a few moments at that time & think of him.

There is a lovely post on Min's thread that you might like to see:

"This may sound woo, especially from a fellow non-believer. But it occurs to me that all the love expressed on this thread among total strangers (from "the cloud" no less!) might just be a sign/message from Will in and of itself. His bravery, his love, his soul, his spirit, his humour -- they're swirling around and leading us here, where we say to you what I imagine he would tell you directly if he could: That we're so sorry for your pain. That we understand and acknowledge your grief. That we desperately hope for your sadness to ease with time. That your beloved boy knew to the depth of his soul how much you love him and hears you saying it eternally. That he felt your arms around him so lovingly that the echo of your touch resides within him forever. That we know how hard it is and how much you miss him."

(Posted by SerendipityDooDah)

You could put Paddy's name in there & it would be just the same.

That poster has hit the nail on the head, as it were.

A link to the thread for those who might want to see it:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/bereavement/2009816-My-beautiful-son?msgid=59286112

I have a son - I cannot begin to imagine the pain you must feel ............

My words are so fucking inadequate but my heart is with you.

(((xxx)))