The summer Holidays started with a wonderful celebration of my nieces 18th birthday. A truly amazing party, not your usual sort of drinking, clubbing party but a camp in the field of her Grandparents. My Dad played his guitar as a reminder of all the years he has played for us as children and as a poignant song was sung a kiss appeared in the sky in cloud formation. Thisey is truly all around us even in the heart-stabbing pain of missing him. Tony engulfed himself in boys play to swallow the void. Whilst relishing my nieces and adoring their beauty, enjoying their company and making me feel younger, if only for an hour or so i couldn't stop thinking perhaps irrationally but certainly fearsomely, will my other boys be 18 one day? strange irrational thoughts which i have touched on before. Thoughts that can not be torn away from the emotion. Rational and emotional rarely meet harmoniously. Our Wittering holiday was challenging. Tony spent many days trying to grasp the concept of being somewhere which was passionately about Thi. He hurt so fiercely, we all did at times. I felt empty as i arrived but knew how to deal with that. I spent some time alone and focused on emptying the worry, anxiety and sadness and tried to be open to fill with love and laughter, allowing Thisey in and to be with me. (weird to some reading this but that is how it is for me). Thisey would have loved the new property we all stayed in and we realised there was more of a connection than anyone of us would have cared for. The family owners of the house are sadly on the same journey as us with their 15 year old daughter. Silent pain is all too prevalent. During our summer hols one thing has struck me in the day to day living with the 3 boys. Xavier is left out quite a large amount of the day. Xavier being Xavier did vocalise this one day and said to me and then to his brothers "Im always left out and i feel alone." Jonas responded with " Well i want to play with Jos!" He has a little sensitivity learning i feel but then at 3 you want what you want!! He did make us all chuckle a little though as Xav presumed his plea would be greeted with a gush of attention and love. Jos with his new very demanding role saved the day........ as ever, he picked up the pieces and loved them both equally. After a long day of juggling our new roles Tony comes in to save the day and makes the unequal 3 boys back into 4. It does require his playing skills of course! But he loves nothing more than a kick about with the boys. We are still learning how to be 3 boys in the physical sense but we will always be 4. Jos is an amazing little chap he comes out with various words that simply hit the nail on the head. Just when i think he is holding it all in and that i need to make sure he is not protecting us he lands me a cracker which throws me into a different realm. He is quiet, takes it all in, rationalises things and makes sense of his new world around him. Jos was playing sometimes with the boys and sometimes without, depending on the needs of the time and when all was calm he passes by me and in a matter of fact way he says" You never know how much you love your brother until they have died" Nearly choking on my cup of tea i can simply agree with him and relate it to how lucky he is to have Xav and Jonas and how important Jos is to them. Sometimes i feel the need to try and trigger Jos into how he feels. Xav and Jonas are united in being able to talk openly and freely whenever they want about Thi. I now realise that Jos is open and free but just slightly more matter of fact about the whole experience of living without Thi. I was flicking through our picture album of Thisey the other night and trying to trigger a response, I simply said "Its not fair is it Jos?" He responded " No Mummy but it had to happen to someone and we are lucky that we are a family with more than 2 children otherwise i would have been left on my own" So Jos was able to create a lucky positive situation out of our devastation. A child, profound and able to rationalise. Leaving me proud and yet pained as i think of all the other people around me that have been left in not such a "lucky"position and pained as i still feel its not fair.Jos has taught me a great deal and i thank God everyday for my glorious boys. Xavier in his emotive way breaks me with his words. As i put him to bed and say our prayer for our family he says" Don't worry mummy remember Thi is always with us and that Jesus is kind so Thi will definitely be looked after" I try not to worry but that came with conception........ Finally, a wonderful weekend away with my uni friends. Bath is a glorious city that i visited 2 years ago. Visiting Bath again triggered pains of remembering vividly the treatment and thoughts of Thisey. Honestly, 2 years ago i walked the streets of Bath thinking would i really end up with a mended Thisey. Unfortunately my fears were met with reality and going back to Bath just relived all those horrendous fears. My girls caught me and the weekend was truly relaxing and i loved it. Sometimes you have to do things that hurt to mend the feelings. Only one realisation occurred was that by naturally missing Tony Jos Xav and Jonas heightened the pain of missing Thi. A solitary break emptied my bag of triggers and the bag was empty again ready to rise to my highest level of love, carrying Thisey through my days. And so as the months march past i look at Jos, whose hands whilst doing homework resemble Thisey's and Jos' legs and bottom replicate Matthias as he runs in the sand and the waters edge of wittering ....... painful yet comforting. Xavier has recently started to look far more like Thi as he gets older but resembles Thi in his younger years.Jonas' character is Thi through and through. My darling Thisey you are all around us in everything we do. We love you always and forever. xxxx p.s I have struggled for a while now with the spelling of Thisey and been anxious about mentioning this but i feel the time is right. I would naturally spell it like most THISEY. However, he categorically said to me that he would like it spelt THISY. Seeing as Thisey is a nick name the spelling quite rightly can be misconstrued. I have no problem with the spelling but when you see the school mural and the spelling is THISEY"S PITCH it is because we wanted everyone who does and doesn't know him to read it with the correct pronunciation. Always and forever THISY! x Posted on August 23, 2012