The heads of the daffodils in the garden are already turning yellow; they’ll bloom in a matter of weeks, they’ll be over before March has ended. Daffodils are Freddie’s flower. I don’t want to do April without daffodils. Seeing them nodding and bobbing on the 2nd April is one of the things that keeps me […]
The Angry.
Wednesday was a really tough day. Every so often, a grief day emerges, out of nowhere except a combination of events and hormones and co-incidences and moments of unexpected thoughtlessness. And Wednesday started, as it so often does, with a dream. I never dream about Freddie; I have barely dreamed of him at all; I […]
The Silent Salute #WaveOfLight
There are days when I ache to speak of Freddie with my voice, not my fingers. Days when I wish for someone to sit with me and hold me while I sift his hospital notes and my hastily copied social media comments for the snippets of his life which have fled my memory. There are […]
We don't talk about the SCBU days.
I’m writing today at Glow in the Woods about the reality of parenting after losing a child who lived his whole life in the care of the medical people we trust with our lives and who couldn’t save him. I don’t write much about the SCBU days. It’s still too painful to think about, let […]
Monkey Do
He was playing on the floor at work this week, engrossed in two plastic cars off the stock shelves and a box of shredded paper. Perfect play fodder for a little boy. Cars and mess. We were both smiling at him and watching him play. Distracted, he looked up and reached for a different toy. […]
Right Where I Am: Three Years, Two Months
The yearly check in with grief via Still Life with Circles has become fundamental to me. I have waited for it to come around again yet now I wonder what thoughts to write. If I say “Life is good”, I feel the eyes of the boy who isn’t on my back. Imagining myself walking on, […]
The Lullaby Trust
I've sung to Bene every day since I had him I think. I never sung to Freddie, not so far as I can remember, and it's one of my saddest thoughts. From very early on, Bene has been soothed by the sound of 'Yellow Bird', he knows its the sleepy song, he knows it means […]
You may Wonder.
I have a friend, who I have never met and who I share only a few things in common with, called Johnny Daukes. I’m not even sure how we came to be Facebook friends if I’m honest, perhaps through home educating. When Freddie died he was one of the people who checked up on me […]
Remembering Freddie
2 years since we said goodbye.
A New Year.
The last two years I did a New Years Eve post, one full of hope and joy, one full of anger and despair. This year I didn’t think I would take the risk. In fact, looking back at the festive period this year, I think I got through it all by just deciding not to […]
