Dear friends. I have been reading your posts and its so uplifting hearing of signs of your children. For me they come in many forms. As Lisa was a Florist, she taught me so much and now when I arrange flowers , at home or in our holiday cottages I can feel her saying , not four Mum, 3 or 5 as the arrangement won’t balance.
When I am driving I talk to her all the time. I tell her about Brooke and Jamie and how amazing Jemma is with her. Then my old car will pass at a roundabout, the one I gave her the year before she passed. It’s then I know she is with me. It’s not coincidence, it can’t be!
Hi Kate,
Like you I imagine Andrew talking to me when I’m doing something. My thing is a silly one. Being a gas fitter and plumber he fit a new outside tap for his nanny and also one for us recently. My mum always worried that she didn’t turn the tap off properly so Andrew said to her " Leftie loosie…rightie tightie". Now everytime I use the outside tap I can hear him saying that to me.
Do you actually see your old car ?
I’m thinking of keeping Andrew’s car…it’s only an old one but I can’t actually bear the thought of seeing it on the road so thought if we keep it it will be a little part of Andrew still with us. Is that silly??
Love Sue xxxxx
Not silly at all if it’s what you want to do and you’ve room.
Some silly family sayings are so precious. We are a Lancs/Yorks family. Northern dialect sometimes uses ‘us’ for ‘our’, as in ‘put us coats on’.
We have this silly family greeting ‘Ullo us Kaf’, etc. I still hear her say ‘Ullo us Mum’. I’m crying as I write . . .
But it’s with love for her.
Hugs 🫂 to you all, dear people xx
Sue, that’s funny, I always say that too. Lefty Lucy rightly tighty!
Yes I do see my old car. The first time was when I was driving back to the house after walking the dogs. It was early morning and it passed on the main road going up the hill in the direction of our house. For a split second I thought ‘Oh there’s Lisa, wonder if she’s dropping off flowers for a wedding’ and to myself I said, phew, that was a hideous nightmare I had about her dying! Then, of course, reality kicked in. My heart was racing. Crazy crazy.
I have seen it many times since as we live in the Highlands so it’s sparsely populated and not unusual to see a previous car.
Funny though , I seem to see it when I am very low and it makes me feel Lisa knows and needs to let me know she’s here.
I taught Gemma to drive. When the car was in neutral she would say ‘the cars in wibbly wobbly mum’. We were once driving around the country lanes where we live and we came to a tiny T junction. I said ‘okay slow down as we approach’. Well she put her foot on the accelerator by mistake and we shot over the T junction and on to the verge. We just sat there laughing ! Such happy memories xxx
I’d like to think so Racy. We always used to message each other to look quickly if there was a rainbow or a beautiful sky. Mostly we’d text to look at the full moon. His flat has the best view ever when the full moon is rising…now it just upsets me to see it .
Hope your day is peaceful
Love Sue xxxx
What possessed me to go and read past text messages between me and my son?. Why did I do that? Now I am sitting here crying but for a brief moment made me feel like he was still here.
We can’t help trying to make things ‘normal’ again, and texts are very much part of our life with our children. Sometimes it makes us feel a bit better, it’s contact with them, sometimes it reminds us that we can’t do it now. (Tho I did send Katherine a picture of a lovely country lane, when some family members were going out for a walk, and I said she could walk there with her Dad - we aren’t always rational!
It’s the same with birthday, Christmas, Mother’s day cards I’ve saved. It’s bittersweet to look at them, but I treasure them.
Dear friend, I read Lisa’s texts all the time, watch videos and scroll through photos on old phones. For me it makes me feel she’s alive and with us. Sometimes I cry but mostly I just can hear her voice saying the words she was texting.
I’ve still got my daughters texts from the evening before she died. I can’t bear to look at them, but so far I can’t bear to delete them either. For me, and we are all different, seeing a picture of her or her texts and emails is really painful and no solace. I think I’m gonna leave it for now and decide sometime later. I don’t want to delete them and regret it, or look at them and fall apart. Another painful part of the whole thing of losing her. I guess we each have to do whatever feels right. I’m not sure if refusing to look at them is avoidance or denial or something that might change as time moves on and somehow, one day, I will reach some kind of acceptance of the unacceptable and then feel differently about photos, texts and emails. For the time being tho I don’t feel any way comfortable about it so I’m leaving it till the right time. Xx
There is no ‘right’ way to do anything, just what feels right for each of us in our different ways. I completely understand not being able to bear looking at texts and photos, but I’m different, I cling on to them, and am sad I haven’t more videos to see Katherine and hear her voice.
Whatever we do, it’s about our love for them.
Ann
Dear Kath, I hope today is not too painful for you. Well of course it will be, but I hope Louise’s birthday brings you feelings of love as well as grief.
I’ve had my Katherine’s first birthday and we get through these things, the thought before is usually worse than the actual event.
I hope you smell her perfume and feel her with you today.
Much love Ann
I find it very hard to look at photos of Gemma now … I find it too hard. I have videos and text messages too but all too much for me.
When I reached the stage of having more peaceful days without the constant sobbing, I somehow developed a strategy for avoiding my triggers which included photographs and even thinking of her. Then gradually again I would allow myself little thoughts of her so she wouldnt disappear completely. I hope that makes sense. My darling girl I love and miss her so much xxx
I find, at the moment, I’m able to listen to Andrew’s voice on videos and even though it makes me sad it also makes me smile hearing him laugh and talk to his dog. It’s only just over 2 months since he died so I don’t know if I’m still in denial a bit, not really believing he’s gone forever.
I have all his WhatsApp messages from when I first started using this phone…I never deleted any ever. I often read back through some…I miss him SO much.
Sue xxxxxxx
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