Dearest Thi My darling the days march on and it seems that there is not a minute that I don't think about you. Each time I think of you it is a different picture. Some days you are well, some days, the more painful days, you are so desperately unwell. Some days we are at Chase and with Liverpool on their way to potentially winning the league all I see is your smile when Steven said hello to you. That moment darling is my proudest moment and yet my saddest as I knew then that my time with you was being counted and so very quickly too. Some days go past and I feel guilty. Not that I haven't thought about you, because I do literally all the time, but because when I think of you I feel ok. Guilty for feeling ok? crazy yet real. Parents are given many guilt trips but I never thought I would feel guilty for feeling ok. Sometimes it's quite scary to feel ok and I will search to feel anything other than that. Somehow by being sad or happy about you is far more accepting. As we embark on our 6th year at Hoburne I am packing the boys clothes and preparing for the glorious mayhem and I ask for one thing. For you to come with us and be with us and share in our fun. I believe you are with us and as I watch Jonas and his biggest cousin I am watching something very special. Jonas looks at Tom in a deep way. Does he see Tom as once he saw you, his eldest brother. Likewise, Tom has taken Jonas completely under his wing. Nothing has made this happen it is quite simply chemistry and the relationship has naturally evolved. Jonas is so similar to you and so close to Tom, just like you and Tom were in your unique relationship. Tom always looked up to you as his inspiring big cousin. I wonder if Jonas and Tom find comfort in each other to cope with their pain? A relationship blooming to show me you’re always with us? As the holiday marches on I see the back of Jos wearing your clothes and for a split second my breath is taken away. The holiday draws to a close and my whole body drops. Nobody likes the end of a holiday but with that I am confused again. As I enter into a lower state I stop for a while and ponder on my confusion. Why am I in disbelief again? Why am I completely lost and not believing you have died? I foolishly think you will walk around the corner and I am willing a glimpse of you. Only to be stabbed yet again when my brain wakes up to tell me it's true. You have left our earthly world and you are no more part of our physical being. And then the pain associated with that is more than anyone can truly explain. There is nothing to take this pain away and all I can do is find a way to start climbing again. Somebody wrote the other day that it's like climbing a mountain for those left behind. One day we will reach the summit. But until then we will slowly keep climbing and on occasions fall. It's a struggle sometimes my gorgeous boy, but one day we will be there for you again. Or maybe you will be there for me? As I meet up with my with my beautiful friends we talk about you. The children love being with us, able to grasp a small closeness to you. When I was talking to my friend we realised that our emotions were doing the same sequence. As ever I like to put feelings into pictures and I likened it to a racetrack. A figure of 8. That at certain points around the track there are emotions. Guilt, despair, pure pain, disbelief, irrational clashing with emotional, emptiness. All of these and more are on the track and as we move around the figure of 8 we bump into the emotion, deal with it and move onwards with a rest in between. Then we hit the next pit stop of emotion until we go around and around and visit the emotions over and over again. Sometimes we are running between emotion stops and sometimes dawdling. Speed is irrelevant but the figure of 8 is eternal and as the years go by we will still hit those emotional stops but maybe we won't fall so hard at them? I realised that whilst at Hoburne I was at an emotional stop of disbelief. I have moments where I search my brain and heart as I truly don't believe you have died. My brain takes a time to click back to reality and then my heart reacts. It's all too true and painful. Today I have played around with a photo collage app. You know me Thisy I've always been OCD about my pictures. Quite frankly thank God I was and am. Whilst creating Barker boy collages I did one for you. One photo pierced my heart as you looked into my eyes. Sometimes I am thrown into the emotional stop of despair all too quickly and painfully. As I stare deeply into your eyes I am holding you and just for that split second I have you with me. That split second goes all too quickly. As fast as I stumble my vision of holding goes. Well darling until I reach the next emotional stop on my reach for the summit I shall always be Loving you and missing you Always and Forever my darling Mummy xxx