Hello Deborah
I know that feeling, I’m nearly 6 years down the line (9th Dec) it is the feeling of sheer helplessness we are all with you on this journey try and get through the day at the moment the waves are crashing over you, but they will subside again and it will just lap at your feet.
Take care, I’m thinking of you
Love Helen
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Fear Deborah , I am thinking of you on this very sad day . Of losing your precious Kathryn . Anniversary are the worse . . Like Helen only two weeks time , it will be when we lost our beautiful children , , it will be six years and the pain is still unbearable . I hope you will have your family around you , to help you get through the day . Sending lots of love Maddie and John xxxx
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Deborah
Sending love and thoughts, a difficult, painful day, so hard.
As anniversaries approach, we don’t think straight. Our thoughts are taken over by our loss. Somehow we make it through.
Love to all
Chris x
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Thank you Helen 
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Thank you Maddie and John I’m seeing Jackie next Friday
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Thank you Chris
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Hi Deborah .im so very sorry .it doesn’t get any easier my thoughts are with you today .your beautiful daughters prob giving you a hug . Much love zoe xx
Thank you everyone for your kind words your all so lovely .all going through this horrible journey at different stages. Grief is different for everyone .im finding it really tough right now and not doing great i miss my beautiful sam more than ever.sorry ive not replied .jve read all posts couldnt survive without you all sending you all hope and love my lovely friends 
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Dear Deborah, I am thinking of you today especially and your darling Kathryn. I will light a candle this evening for you.
Much love
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Deborah , the anniversaries are the worst. Sending love and strength to you on this sad day.
Kate xxx
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Dear All
Thank you so much for your kind words. They helped me get through the horrible day. Lots of tears but knowing that people were thinking of me and my daughter was heartwarming. Deborah
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Dear Deborah,
I find hard to believe it’s been 2 years since you lost your beautiful Kathryn 
I hope you are ok, (daft question i know ) the anniversaries are so hard, its like the world keeps going on but for us time stands still as no matter how long ago we lost our dear children it seems to us so recent like only weeks have gone by, I suppose because every day we seem to relive it all over again, this time of year is when we all have to dig really deep to put the best acting performance of our lives as we have to think of our other children and loved ones.
Sending much love to you Deborah and everyone else especially those who have anniversaries coming up you are all all in my thoughts 
Sending love and hugs to all
Michelle xxxx
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Hi all
Seem to spend a lifetime sat downstairs in the small hours,. If I had a pound for every hour of sleep I’ve lost since my boy left, I’d be able to buy one of them magic clocks that you can turn back . If only!!!
I often wonder what he would have been doing now, it never turns out like you imagine. He’d moved away from his home town, got himself a good job in London, had met someone nice, everything was falling into place. In my mind’s eye view I have a picture of how the pattern of his life would have played out. But then he went and died. But even if he hadn’t, his life would have taken twists and turns like it does for all of us and it probably would have played out completely differently than I envisaged.
My wife ( not his mum). Still convinces herself that he works away from home. He just hasn’t called in for a while. Sometimes when I realize how long it is since I’ve seen him it frightens me. You go through periods where you are constantly trying to pull yourself together. Trying not to get upset.
This is a thing that you can only explain to people that know, ( this community). Everyone else thinks you have long since got over it. They don’t know , you have sleepless nights, flashbacks , surreal moments,. Lost opportunities,. Memories that you can’t shake off,
Other people don’t see that there are a million things you miss out on that they take for granted.
Sometimes when I sit in the dark when I can’t sleep, I wonder if he is in a parallel universe somewhere feeling it’s the other way round, we didn’t loose him. He lost us .
Rite think I’ve prattled long enough.
Thanks for listening
Take care
Jim
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Hi Michelle
Thank you. I know, it doesn’t seem possible that it was 2 years ago that a policeman knocked on my door to give me the devastating news. It is still so raw and on the anniversary I had awful flashbacks to that time. Very draining and emotional as I know it is for all of us on those days. I wish that I could smile and remember the good times and happy memories of her but it doesn’t happen, just the opposite. I have been texting Anne and the anniversary of her Scott passing is on Wednesday. She like all of us just keeps on going despite struggling desperately with our loss.
Sending love and hugs to everyone
Deborah xxx
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Thankyou Deborah , so hope you wil get something from Jackie , as I am sure you will. Iwe are coming down on the 4th , if you would like to meet up for coffee on then5th please let us knows, would so love to see younxxx
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Thanks for sharing Jim. If there was a ‘magic’ clock that could turn back time there would be an absolute stampede to get hold of one! I never knew what the word ‘yearning’ really meant till I lost my girl. Yet all of us on here have that feeling way too often. None of us deserved to lose our child but life and death are cruel, sometimes in ways most of us didn’t even consider till it happened. It’s often said on here but it’s very true, we are all in the club no one wants to join. Everyone has a different story but it starts with the loss of our own child and the struggle to learn to carry on as best we can to keep them in our hearts and grow our hearts bigger so there’s space for our lost children and some space too to live our lives. Xxx
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Jim and Nell. You are absolutely right. If I could turn back time I would in an instant. I have vivid dreams where my daughter is right beside me and she has come back to life and we are planning her birthday, coming up soon, and Christmas and then in the dream how do we explain to everyone she has come back to life.
I wonder if ever she would be able, to be physically and mentally stable in a few years time. I had bought her a flat 19 years ago, mortgage now paid off, we have furniture in storage now not going to be used. Everything you thought would happen won’t and to lose my daughter at just 19 years old and she had such a horrible life since she was 18 probably none of this would have happened. But it’s so hard to accept the latter when there were such magic moments in her short life with so much love she had to give. I hope everyone on here is able to get through Christmas I don’t know how I will yet as I just don’t know what to do, to make it even just bearable. Xx
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Hi Andy - yes just the thought of Christmas makes me depressed. We spent so many Christmases in the Alps (we live in Switzerland) and they were happy times. In 2020 we went to the Emmenthal to a nice spa hotel with friends and my other son, but Joey refused to come as he was so afraid of catching Covid and giving it to his dad and me. Not scared for himself but especially for his much older dad who wasn’t in great health anyway. I felt so sad for him, all alone. He wasn’t ill yet. Then in 2021 we went to another spa resort in the Alps, our family and friends. But Joey was weak and waiting to have a tricky RPLND operation only days later, he didn’t go into the spa pools nor up the mountain but stayed reading by the fire. We did have nice dinners - and that we won’t ever have again without sadness. I have only one picture of him that last Xmas, on the balcony of the hotel, looking out over the snowy mountains. Tons of pictures of the rest of us who went to the baths and the mountain top. If I’d known that was his last Xmas I would have taken so many more photos. 
This year we will do nothing. There’s only my husband and me and our son Kevin, who’s single. He’ll have a proper celebration with close friends and his godsons on the 24th. If there are children you have to make a certain fuss, don’t you? But on the 25th we shall have some Thai food delivered and watch a documentary on tv and I’ll take a double sleeping pill. I just don’t know where to look what with Xmas decorations going up in the streets now. I refuse yo even have an pointsettia.
And I can’t look at happy families. A friend in NZ sent me a long text message about their Xmas plans: her 5 sons, their wives and 11 grandchildren are coming over to their house on the beach. Oh boy, all the presents I still have to buy and organising I still have to do, she said. I should obviously be happy for her but I couldn’t text back. Such happiness in her family and such raw terrible grief in mine. It’s just not fair! It’s been less than 7 weeks for me and I’m not doing well.
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Thank you Joeys mom.
I am so sorry you and all of us on this site and many others as well, have to now get through this Christmas without our loved ones. Its just me and my partner now for Christmas, and I don’t think we will be putting any decorations up at all. I am also trying to avoid as much Christmas shopping as possible but as you say, I have some friends who have children and you have to make an effort for them. It’s over six months now since our daughter died and its still very hard to even function. The diazepam does not help that much either. I never ever thought I would be a bereaved parent, it never really crossed my mind even when my daughter was ill, but I guess none of us thought we would be. Xxx
Hi Andy.
You’re dead right , none of us ever imagined being a bereaved parent. That’s coz it unimaginable. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. I really do feel for all the people facing their first Christmas. It is quite hard. But it will pass, you will find with all “dates”. The build up is far worse than the day itself
Take care
Jim
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Jim10 you should write a book in those wee small hours of the morning , you have such a talent every thing you put down i think is so insightful and hits the nail on the head. I find your comments more helpful and comforting than any of the so called self help books I have read.
Thanks and Please keep posting. Jss
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