Word of the Week - 14th November 2015

This week my Word of the Week is...

Memories

This week has been very much about my memories.

Memories of my late grandparents.

This week the sale of their bungalow has been completed. The place that holds so many treasured memories is now for another family to create their own memories. I have struggled this week with accepting that it will be gone, forever. I can no longer return, not that I would want to now but it feels strange knowing that the last loose end has been tied. Now all I have left of my Nanna and Grandad and their home is just memories.

However, the tying of the loose ends also brings closure.

Closure means that now we can look to the future and treasure the memories that we have. I still miss them both so very much and I always will do. But it is now time to move on. I am going in the right direction and this is just an extra push. 

If they were here they would be telling me off for being sad. So from now on I promise them that I will try and stop feeling sad. My sadness will be replaced with smiles when I remember the fun times we had, when I remember the loving look my Nanna used to give me and hearing my Grandad shouting "hello" in the tone that he used. These memories will make me smile from now on. That is what they would want from me, so that is what I will do.

God bless you both, I miss you and will always hold you close to my heart xx

As always I am sharing my Word of the Week with the lovely Jocelyn at The Reading Residence.

Word of the Week - 11th July 2014

My word of the week is a really basic word but it sums up my week perfectly.

My word of the week is

Me

I have chosen this word as this week I have started feeling like me again.

I have my motivation back.

The black heavy cloud has lifted.

I am still grieving my Nanna but it is not pulling me further down. I am dealing with it and managing it. Yesterday we went to her bungalow for the second time. The first time broke me. But yesterday it was still hard but not as much as the first time. When we arrived the twins shouted "Yay Mamars!" but when we went in and she wasn't there Isabella said to me "Mamar is hiding". A week a go I would have fallen to pieces but yesterday with my mums help we explained that Mamar is a shiny star with Gramps.

I definitely feel like my tablets are working. I am my calmer, smiling self again. My smiles aren't false anymore, I feel like smiling! I am also feeling stronger and determined to be me again.

I am also enjoying the children more again. I am cherishing the happy moments and giggles we have playing. At the moment our favourite thing to do is playing on the swings.

Life is getting good again. I am becoming me again. After next Wednesday, Nanna's funeral, I feel that I will be able to move on a step further. I will always miss her terribly but I will start to live with the loss and smile with the memories that I treasure.

As always I am sharing my Word of the Week with the lovely Jocelyn at The Reading Residence

Wednesday Words

As Christmas gets closer both my excitement and sadness builds up.

 

Obviously I cannot wait to see the delight and surprise on the children's face when they see that is waiting for them on Christmas morning.

 

I am really excited about Christmas dinner as this will the first Christmas dinner that I have cooked.

 

I am excited as this will be our first Christmas day at home. Normally we go to either my parents or my hubby's.

 

I am excited about spending lots of quality time together as a family. 

 

My sadness is building for the person that will be missing this year.

 

The name that will be missing on Christmas cards.

 

The Christmas hug that I will not get.

 

I am missing my grandad.

 

Earlier in the year we were planning to make this Christmas an extra special Christmas.

 

Earlier in the year we thought that we would get a final Christmas together as a family. This is a special time that we were hanging onto.

 

This was cruelly stolen from us.

 

Grandad went to sleep before we got chance to have this time.

 

This year it breaks my heart to think that he will not be with us and that I will be going to the crematorium instead of having a final Christmas dinner together.

 

I am getting stronger and I am handling my grief well. I am just not looking forward to seeing an empty place where my grandad would have been at Christmas.

 

I was looking at encouraging quotes for today's Wednesday Words when I found this quote from Grey's Anatomy and I thought it was a perfect way to describe grief and loosing someone.

 

"The very worst part of grief is that you can't control it. The best we can do is try to let ourselves feel it when it comes. And let it go when we can."
Grey's Anatomy

 

 

Wednesday Words are hosted by Emma at Crazy With Twins. Check out Emma's heart felt poem Geiger Counter. I wish Emma all the best with her pending results and I pray she gets the best Christmas present ever.

 

http://www.crazywithtwins.com/2013/12/04/wednesday-words-geiger-counter/
 



A Hard Morning - The Final Goodbye

This morning we have to do the final act to put my grandad to rest.
This morning we are scattering his ashes.
Since the funeral this has been looming over us. That day was so, so hard and now I feel as if we are saying goodbye all over again.
That dreaded sicky, heavy feeling has returned in my stomach.
I miss him so much.
Everytime I go to visit my nanna I find myself looking in the garden and expecting to see him pottering about or whizzing up and down on his tractor (really a ride on lawnmower that we always called a tractor!). He loved that garden and being outside in it.
Everytime my nanna rings "nanna and gramps" flashes up on my phone as I cannot change it. The number of times I've said to the kids "lets go to grandma and gramps" because its what I'm used to saying.
We swapped one of our cars a few weeks ago and got a Volvo. My grandad always had Volvos until his last car. They were "good reliable cars" in his mind. After we got it all I could think was "grandad would be proud" I could even hear him saying to us "you've got a good car there, reliable and safe!"
Then the tears and feeling of loss returned. I find the majority of the time I am ok but then I'll see or hear something that reminds me of him and I'll crash back down. However I don't stay down as long as I did. I'll have my tears, get it out of my system then I'm ok.
It has been starting to get easier.
Then today has come.
This is the final goodbye. But we need to do it to get closure so that we can all move on.
Moving on doesn't mean forgetting. On the contrary, we will remember everyday. I tell the twins about him and they know who he is on  photographs and Joseph certainly has his happy memories of his gramps chasing him around the garden! Just remembering that makes me smile.
That's what I want.
I want to be able to smile whenever I think of him and not cry.
I am getting there.
After today, things should get easier again.
But first we need to set him free.
Lay him to rest and return him to family.
Grandad, I know you're looking over us and we will do you proud. If you were here you'd be telling me off for crying and being upset but today I will do exactly that because I love you and miss you. After today I promise you that I will be the strong grand daughter that you loved. I will do it because I know it is what you would want me to do!
Rest in peace dear grandad. You may not be with us in person but live on in our hearts and memories.
I love you x

Dear Grandad

I now feel as ready as I'll ever be to write this post. I'm hoping that it will help me on my grieving process and enable me to begin to move on.
So here goes........

Dear Grandad,

Two weeks ago you left us.
You left us all heart broken and left a huge empty space in our lives.
You had fought the evil disease cancer for so long. I even think that you had hidden the level of your suffering until we all knew the true extent of it. Once we all knew, you gave in to it, too tired and exhausted to fight any more.
We were just starting to try and get our heads around the thought that we only had months left with you. Little did we know we would only have 9 days.
We had so much planned for the next few months. We had Joseph's 9th birthday to celebrate, we had the twins christening to celebrate, we had dads 60th birthday to celebrate and most of all we had Christmas to celebrate together as a whole family. We were going to make this Christmas such a special one.
We will never celebrate all of these together as a whole family.
That has all been stolen from us.
You have been stolen from us.
I still cannot truly believe that you have gone.
When nanna rings, the telephone still flashes up as "Nanna and Grandad", when we go round I still expect to hear you call out "Hello!", I still expect to wake up and it has all been a horrible nightmare.
But, I know that this is not true.
You have gone.
I was by your side when you took your last breath, I told you to sleep tight. I am pleased that your suffering is over but that does not make me miss you any less. You have always been there and I will always miss you.
Today I saw you for the last time. You looked at peace, your pain had gone.
Tomorrow we will lay you to rest.
I am not going to say goodbye. I am just going to say good night.
Goodbye seems so final. I like to believe that you have gone to another place. You are watching over us.
Tomorrow is going to be such a hard day. We will all make you proud and will be there by nanna's side and give her all the support that we can.
Grandad, may you rest in peace. Everyone has said that you were always such a gentleman, they were right. You were a very special man who will never be forgotten.

Grandad, you'll always be missed

but will forever be in our

hearts, thoughts and memories

Love you always

Good night, Love you, God bless

xxxxx

Rollercoaster of Emotions

I am quickly discovering that grief is a rollercoaster of emotions.
Yesterday, I had a good day, today I have crashed back down again.
Since Joseph has returned to school I have thrown myself back into our routine. This has really helped to distract my mind from what is going on. Yesterday I kept myself busy around the house and in the garden so I didn't have time to sit and dwell.
I went to bed last night feeling that it may be getting easier.
Then this morning I came crashing down with a bang.
The notification was in the local paper. Reading it broke my heart and the tears returned and stayed for the day. I think that reading it in print made me realise that it has actually happened.
We have lost him.
We have this huge gap in our family that will not be filled.
At the moment my emotions are going up and down at such a rate the only way to describe them is as a rollercoaster. It is a ride that I am on, I wish that I was not on it, but I am and I am stuck on it until I deal with my grief. I honestly don't think that I will begin to recover until we have said our final goodbyes. This is a day that fills me with dread. It is going to be such a hard day and I do not know how I am going to cope. I do know that I will be a mess and I will rely on my hubby to give me the strength to walk in and give him the send off that he would have wanted us to. I will struggle because I am not ready to say that final goodbye.
I am selfish.
I wanted more time, wanted to make more memories, wanted to have one more special family Christmas together and I feel cheated that we won't get that. No matter how much I want that, it is the one thing we will never have and that is something I need to learn to accept.
My grandad would not want me to feel like this, he would wag his finger at me and tell me to look at my family and live our lives to the full, be happy, smile, laugh, and create happy memories for the children.
Grandad, I promise you I will do this and I will continue to make you proud.

Back to School and Back to Routine!

Yay!!!
It is that time of year. At last, it's back to school day!!!
Please don't get me wrong. It has been lovely to have Joseph at home but the last week has been a tough one and it is going to be nice to have a routine to set my mind to.
This morning Joseph was absolutely full of beans! He was so excited to go back to school and see all of his friends. I am lucky to be able to say, so far, touch wood, I have never had a problem getting Joseph to go to school. He was up and ready to go!
This morning I took him to school in the car so that me and the twins could continue on out to do a spot of shopping. I decided to be brave and park near to school and walk down with the twins holding my hands. They were little stars! I felt so proud of them they both held my hand and walked to the playground, they stood with me whilst we watched Joseph go into school. They even waved to him which was so adorable to see. I looked at them and realised that just over the 6 weeks holidays they have developed so much and are learning about the world around them. I think that they will miss Joseph a bit. I know that I will miss having a little helper around!
After we had a steady walk back to the car off we went to have a walk around the shops and buy a few bits. I had not planned to go out this morning but our chickens have got red mites so we needed something to clean their coop. It was hubby's idea for me to go out. Admittedly I wasn't keen to start with but once we got out I felt so much better. It was lovely to just be out with the twins, strolling around and forgetting all of my worries. After a bad nights sleep the fresh air has done me the world of good! Sometime I think my hubby knows what I need more than I know myself!
I have been trying to keep myself busy to keep my mind off things. This is ok for a while and then something will make me think of my grandad or remind me of him and I go crashing down. But each day that goes by I am having less of these moments. This doesn't mean its getting easier, it just means that I am learning to cope better with my grief. However I know the hardest day is yet to come. So until then I will continue as I am and tackle that hurdle when it comes.
As we all keep saying, one day at a time.
Thankfully, today has started well.

Taken from us too soon

Today's post is a hard one for me, I don't talk much about some things but certainly find writing easier.
Last night as I was settling down to sleep I realised what date it was, 3rd July, the anniversary of losing someone who was/is very special to me and played a bit part in helping helping me to become the person I am today.
3 years ago we lost Anita to an degenerative neurological disorder (brain disease) CJD (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease). This is an incurable disease which is caused by the progressive death of the brains nerve cells. I was told that Anita had this in the May of 2010 and by July it had taken her. When Anita died she was at at her happiest, she had recently married the love of her life after years being in an unhappy one and was finally living as she wanted to.
Anita was like a second mother to me. She took me under her wing during some of my darkest times and helped me find myself. During this time I was living in Gran Canaria. Anita came to my help after a near fatal accident and from that day on she was always there for me as a mother figure. 3 months after my accident I discovered I was 5 months pregnant, Anita was the person who I turned to for support. She never let me down. Anita was by my side, encouraging me to push, when I went into labour with Joseph and was naturally his God mother the day he was christened.
Once Joseph was 6 months old I returned to England but never lost contact with Anita. I had various trips out to see her and she also came and visited us.
Anita always said how proud she was of the person that I had become, I only wish she was here now to see how much further both me and Joseph have come. I wish she was here on the day I married james, or to see and cuddle Isabella and Taylor. She would have been overjoyed.
Losing Anita the way we did certainly does make you look at life and appreciate everything you have got, and I do not mean material items, I mean health, happiness, family and love. Anita always told me I should write so in a way I feel that this blog is a start for me.
RIP Anita, you were my guardian angel when you were here and I know that you are up there watching over us now, when the twins are bigger we will tell them about you and what a special person you were. We will look for the brightest star in the sky and know that you are there.
Miss you always xxxxx