I know what you mean about Xmas. I’ve never been a great fan of Xmas cos it’s so commercialised. I had to go into town today and seeing people buying gifts and choosing decorations made me feel really emotional. I saw a friend and had a cry and then said ‘well it’s only two days, I can manage that’ and she said it all ‘it’s not just the day tho is it? It’s all the build up and all the jollity and families being together’. I will never see her on any Christmas now. It hurts. The world keeps turning, as it must, it still hurts tho. Sending all of us a hug. Xxx
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Hi Deborah,
Thank you for your reply 
please send Anne all our love and let her know she is in my thoughts,
Much love and hugs to you too
Michelle xxxx
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Hi all .i cant believe im saying this is my second birthday without my beautiful boy .sam should be here .how can he begone .25 my darling boy …i know we all feel the same about our beautiful children i really hope there somewhere beautiful .i put the tree up coz sam loved it .i grandchildren .who talk about sam everyday …im not sleeping night after night . Jim keep posting .you say what we all think .yes in early hours you should write a book . I will always be thankful for this site and send my love to all of you zoe xx
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My beautiful sam. My lovely jess took me out on saturday for my birthday and my lovely grandchildren .we all try to be brave . I know its early days just wanted to share my family with you xx
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Dear Zoe,
Thank you for sharing your photos of your precious Sam and your lovely family, thank God for Jess and your beautiful grandchildren as I know this is the reason you are able to keep going, sending you love and hugs
Michelle xxxx
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Dear Zoe, you have a beautiful family and our families are why we are able to carry on.
Thank you for sharing your photos … so precious xxx
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Dear Zoe and all
This time of year is especially hard when we have to pretend everything is great for all those around us. When we really want to crawl under the duvet and not come out again until it is all over. This is my 10th year of this pretence and I have not found it any easier. I go to friends for xmas day as my own family was broken by all that happened after the death of my son Conor. I always volunteer to be the designated driver as even a couple of glasses of wine would make my emotions uncontrollable and I don’t want to ruin anyone else’s xmas. I have not found anything that helps with the emptiness and hollow feelings that I have this time of year. Everyone thinks u have moved on but I just feel stuck. Stuck in this emotional turmoil of pretence. Unable to sleep and function properly. The gut wrenching emptiness just doesn’t go away in my experience. I am sorry this is so doom and gloom but this is the only place I can tell how I really feel.
Pauline x
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Thank you michelle xx
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Thank you victoria xx
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Hi pauline im so sorry but i get it . Ive changed forever .sending you a hug .
Im 61 today .ive got back into bed .i hope sams around its so hard
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So lovely Zoe. Sending love.xxx
Hello All
My Sam passed on the 9th December so Christmas can come and go as far as I am concerned but you are all right we have to try for the little ones around us. Joey’s mum, this photo of me and Sam was taken just 2 weeks before he passed, At that time I just lived in hope fear and anxiety that he would somehow pull through he died of a brain tumour.
We went for a walk just round the common where we live.
I always go away the week of Sam going, it hard to stay home as he died here at home with all the family around him together with his best friend Jason. I held Sam’s hand and just before he went into a coma I said “I love you Sam” and he replied quite clearly love you too, so I cling to that memory.
Love Helen
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Oh Helen crazy sad world thinking of you xx
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Hi Sam’s mum. What a lovely picture of your son Sam! How cruel it is to lose so many wonderful young people to this hideous disease.
I love that you can cling to Sam’s last words. I wish Joey had been able to say that, but the last day and night were too horrible for words. We thought we’d have more time and I feel so robbed of that!! He was supposed to have 2 weeks of radiotherapy to cauterise his brain & spine tumours, hopefully followed by some pain-free or at least pain controlled weeks in a hospice, to do some more things from his bucket list! But then he got an intestinal blockage, which most likely led to sepsis, and death. I had so much more to say to him! I told him all the time how much I loved him - to the moon and back was our special phrase - how brave he was, how I’d do anything for him. He never finished a phone conversation without “I love you mom”. Now I’ll never hear that again. A few days before his death he told me he was sorry he was giving me such pain and that he knew I would always be sad. I cling to those words.
I’ll try and post the last picture of the two of us - taken 3 days before he died. He looks so sick.
the second photo is when he was healthy, with his brother, and the third one is of me and my 2 handsome sons a few years ago.
I just don’t see how I’m going to get through Xmas. I envy those of you who have grandchildren. My Xmas will be barren with no joy at all.
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Hello Joeys mum
What beautiful pictures, none of us however long down the road we are will enjoy the festive season again its too hard, I put on a mask for the grandhildren and cry quietly when they are gone. Sam never had any children of his own, but I do have grandchildren from my other son. I’ve looked at every card Sam ever wrote to me and it always say’s the same thanks for everything you do. But my last birthday card from him said love you always love Sam. I found out only this year that he knew he was dying, so made the most of what he had left.
I’m thinking of you
Love Helen
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Hello Zoe , such lovely photos of you Sam , I am so pleased you have your beautiful family around you and they are taken care of you . Joeys mum , such a lovely looking boy you have , but looking back at the photo of when he was so ill , must be so painful , . Pauline I am so so for you , and I can feel your pain . This time of year is the worst, I have been trying to buy Xmas cards for a few dear friends that have lost loved ones recently . And they all say Merry Or Happy . Xmas . , I know after we lost Dawn , any like that I just through in the bin . . Helen will be thinking of you on the 9th . Love to all Maddie xxx
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Thank you maddiexxx
Joeys mum im so sorry for the loss of your beautiful son . Like you i thought i would have more time . They gave sam a year he had a very rare sarcoma in his thigh . Which had spread to bones and lungs. He lasted four months .icspent every day and night with him . We had two weeks in the hospice to control his pain . They was amazing but sam wanted to go home to see his nephews 5 th birthday . He lasted 20 more days and past at home on 27th april last year . I cared for him till the end it was torture to see him so very frail . But sam died in his sleep he talked to me at 3 am . Then shut his eyes at 8 in the morning he had gone it was my mums birthday .we always have said to the moon and back .he never moaned once he was truly our superhero .25 just so unfair 
I have to tell you all i went to the medium in clacton she told me things that was impossible for her to know .sam was with our dog ben . It was mental my mum and dad…on saturday i went afternoon tea as a birthday surprise there was a small white cake left. It jumped of the cake tray right infront of me .everyone gasped so i put it back and within seconds it did it again .i think sam was there …i really hope so xxxx love to all xxx
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Hi all.
Thank you Jss and Zoe. For your comments.
Well you only have to flick through any of the treads to see it’s obvious that people absolutely dread Christmas. Not surprisingly. Everything at this time of year is geared up to make us all believe what a fantastic jolly family time of year it is.
All the adverts on the tele would give the impression that we all sit 10/15 people deep around the dinner table slobbering over a turkey the size of a small country. There are countless films set in idyllic little picture postcard snowy villages, with will they won’t they romances .
Then comes the exchanging of cards and all the hugging and kissing and best wishes.
At work, or bumping into folk in the supermarket. Everyone asking. Ooooh have you got plans over Christmas, then proceed to tell you what a fantastic time THEY!!! Are expecting to have. Everyone it seems is looking forward to the big day, everyone except us!!!.
It feels like the worse time of year for us. If only we could jump into a long dark tunnel on Dec 1st. And immerge back out again in the middle of January. Unfortunately that’s not an option. We are stuck between a rock and a hard place. We dread Christmas and we just don’t have it in us to celebrate ( what is there to celebrate) . But we have to be seen to be bright and bubbly because we don’t want to rain on anyone else’s parade. We don’t want to be in a room full of people full of Christmas spirit, and we are the big dark shadow in the corner sucking all the energy out of the room even if that’s exactly how we feel. You can’t explain to people that don’t know,. They say stuff like. " Come on out" a night out will do you the world of good". Or " it’s Christmas, get a drink down you".
Christmas really is a frame of mind. We miss our children every single day. But because the whole of society is geared up for this time of year it just amplifies the trauma for us. When everyone else is enjoying themselves with family and friends on Christmas day ,we are just waiting for that knock at the door that is never coming or we are looking at the empty space at the table.
The first 3 or 4 Christmas,s after Sam died. I hated with a passion. The build up starts about halfway through October, then for the next 6/7 weeks this big lump in your chest starts forming, you absolutely dread people asking what you are doing for Christmas. You don’t even know how to answer them. I have 3 step son’s. After Sam died they would all turn up with gifts for me , shaking my hand and wishing me all the best. I would smile and say thanks but inside I was dying. I didn’t want gifts. I didn’t want best wishes, I didn’t want any of it. But you can’t do that to people. They are doing what they think is best. People will wish you a merry Christmas or buy you a drink or hug you. Nothing is meant by it. They are not trying to rub your nose in it . The fact they have all their family round them and we don’t.
Christmas is a massive hurdle to get past, make no mistake. The first few brought me to my knees. Where I am now on my journey, Christmas is just irrelevant. I can put a smiley face on and pretend, because that’s what others around me need. I try not to think about it to much , I listen to people talking about their plans but it goes in one ear and out the other. On Christmas day I usually take myself off to a quiet corner for a moment or two and have a few words with Sam. Like everything else, Christmas,s are hard, but they get easier. We adapt as always.
Ok thank you for listening
Take care
Jim.
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Thank you so much Jim. Your words resonate so strongly with me. My Joey died 7 weeks ago tomorrow and I am so so so dreading Christmas! I’ve actually never been a super fan of Christmas since my boys were teenagers. Always thought it highly overrated. In later years my husband and I were sometimes away on overseas trips but there was always that long phone then back to Switzerland on Xmas day to talk to my boys. We’d have celebrated “en famille” before or we’d do it after, and that was just as much fun.
And I’ve also always hated those sugary sweet Hallmark movies where everyone is so happy and smily around the dinner table, as you described. Actually, I have memories of heated political discussions many a time - all the men in my family are so darn stubborn - but now I’d take one of those noisy dinners any time with my Joey, whose politics I was always so proud of. He followed a different drummer, my son did. Didn’t really fit into our materialistic world.
Just walked through a shopping center to reach my doctor and the loudspeakers blared happy Xmas jingles. Kept my eyes to the floor so I wouldn’t have to see all the happy stressed shoppers. I love the idea of a tunnel taking us all off somewhere until mid January.
Annemarie
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