You are so right Chris , I don’t no what I would do without you all . This week our lovely Grandaughter mover into her first house . So we went round the first evening she got her keys . But tell you the truth we felt out of it . Wveryone was there , Aimee was lovely , we gave her a card . But then Sarah turned up with her husband Matt , didn’t talk to us , and John certainly didn’t want to talk to him . We left I felt we didn’t belong there . . We are suppose to be going around tomorrrow to help
Aimee do some cleaning , but I just don’t know , They are so all clicks now with Aimee boyfriends family . Jack our lovely Grandsin feels the same . He feels like he wants to move out , it does get worse . Sarah has got her big 3 months Scan next Sunday , and my heart is aching for her , I can’t sleep at mo . And our best friend is dying , and at m me and John feel really down . . But does anyone worry about us . No I don’t think so … with love to all maddie xx
Hello to all, hope everyone is having a nice weekend, we are havibg a busy week as we have a new puppy she is gorgeous but keeping us on our toes 
I read the posts about keeping our children’s belongings and Matt’s bedroom is just as he left it, i couldn’t face parting with anything but i will let go of some things when i feel the time is right,
I was thinking of you Kate as i knew it was close to Lisa’s anniversary, so sorry you had the bump but glad you managed to get through the day aa best you could and Lisa would have been so happy you had gone out to treat yourself, sending you gentle hugs 
Lovely to hear from you Helen i have been thinking of you and hoping you were ok, i would like to see a medium but am a little scared,
Sorry your having a bad time Maddie, hope things get better at least your granddaughter has included you she must love you both but i know a lot has happened
Sending all my love to you all
Michelle xxx
I’ve got a situation that is a bit like yours, tho not the same. My grandkids are moving into a new house with their dads now fiancé and her children. My girl only died in January last year. The girls are keen I go round but I’m reticent because I don’t know who will be there and I don’t want to bump into the new girlfriend or any of their dads family. I also don’t want to upset my grandkids (16 and 17) so I’ve just said I’m keen to go but only when it’s quiet in the house. I I am now on reasonable terms with their dad and I do understand he’s got a right to a new partner and he is trying to build a ‘blended family’ but I just don’t want to come to their house and see them all together and feel like an outsider and also bloody sad that my girl won’t be there. Because the grandkids are almost young adults I think they understand this. They know I love them and want the best for them so I’m just waiting for a good time to go round so I can see for myself they have a new home where they are comfortable. I only intend to go once. They come here regularly so I’m lucky. It’s so hard finding calm, especially with family who don’t behave like we would like them to, when our child is the one who died. I’m sending you hugs and I know it’s two steps forward and one back xxxxx
Hi Nell , yes it’s so hard , you want to join in , but I know it will be hard for you . I know you have to break the ice at some point . But it’s just awkward . When we round to other day Aimee said Mum and Matt will be here in a minute , my heart froze . As John hates him , the way he spoke to me , and when Sarah got taken into hospital
, he would not answer his phone . We were worried sick . Anyway when he came He ignored us . That’s the first time we have seen him , as I think we have been banned from their house , which John said it’s all right by him . Atleast we see Sarah occasionally , and we text every day . I hope somewhere down the line dear Nell
, it will get raider for you , with Love . Maddie xx
If reading the letters makes your son feel a little closer, then keep doing that and, one day, you will perhaps be able to read them without the tears and instead have some lovely memories.
Hi there. We lost our younger daughter 4 years ago now aged 31. She was a wedding florist and Mum to our little granddaughter. I too read her texts, watch videos of her with Brooke and it makes me feel close to her.
As the gap in time gets wider i feel the need to keep her present, to hear her voice and not forget her infectious laugh.
You are doing what feels right at the time. We all do.
Sending love. Kate xxx
Dear Kate, just after reading your message I came across these words which I thought were so beautiful and sum up how we feel:
If I could have just one more day with you…
I would hardly speak. I would simply listen to your voice and commit every tone of it to memory until it became my favourite melody.
I would look at you. I would study your eyes and your mouth, and I would learn every angle, every pane of your face until I could see you perfectly with my eyes closed.
I would hold your hand in mine. I would trace all the lines on your palm until they became a trail – a map - that I could retrace on my own palm every time I felt lost.
I would soak you up and breathe you in until there was not a single thing that I could not recall at a moment’s notice.
But more than anything, if I had one more day with you,
I would hold you.
I would hold you so tight, hoping that maybe if I didn’t let you go…
You wouldn’t.
Yes, if I had just one more day with you, I would hope… I would hope so hard…
that you wouldn’t have to leave again.
Becky Hemsley 2023
Thankyou dear friend. Those words are so true.
Love to you.
Katexx
Hello Kate,
That was Lisa, made that car run into you and make you concentrate. Well done for getting through.
Love
Helen
Oh Victoria,
The words made me cry but they are so true, I have copied them to use when it is Sam’s birthday (hope you dont mind)
Love
Helen
Yes Victoria , those words are so so true . If only we could turn the clock back and and hold our beautiful children , never to let them go again . Third words have made me weep . I still cannot believe . Dawn has gone forever , she was my rock , how could this of happened ? Lovely speaking with you this afternoon . Sending love to all dear friends . Maddie xx
Dearest Helen, thats what i thought too!
Lots of love.
Kate xxx
Thst is truly beautiful and must, I am sure be what so many of us would do, if only we could have just one more day…
Hello everyone.
Not been on for a while.
It’s very hard to relate to people who haven’t experienced what we have. Every day I think of him. Like a piece of me is missing. When it gets forgotten. By all the bystanders. For us it’s at the for front of our mind. My wife often says how do you cope. We just do. You have to!!! We have to go forward even though we are trapped in the past . They day they went. I think about him every single day. The world moves beyond what we are capable of how to think. If I could turn the clock back. But unfortunately we can’t. In my mind I often think. What would he be doing now almost as if for everyone else his life stopped but for me his life carries on, he’d have been doing this or that. It’s so hard to let go that’s because we can’t. We can’t let go because it’s not the order of things. I get upset all the time. Listening to people talking about their kids and I can’t join in but secretly I’m thinking. Yeah and my son would have been doing this or that. I know it’s just a mind thing. But for me he’s still there. I just have to convince myself that he’s actually gone. He’s trapped in time. But I will be with him again. One day
Hi jim totally get what your saying… it was the wrong order of things it will never be ok. Ive wondered if you was ok nice to see you on here .
This site has been my saving grace… been really upset the last couple days cant snap out of it my two little grandchildren have stayed they talk about sam all the time .bobby 10 says oh nan why has it happened sam was like my dad my best friend . He only cared about family .it will affect them fir the rest of there lives… im sobbing this morning and bobby hugging me. … i somehow deleted all my wassap photos nessages .so stupid lots memories . Hope your all ok thinking of you all always
Hello Dear friends,
Lovely words Victoria thank you for sharing, its lovely to hear from you Jim, we have missed you, its so hard when everyone carries on with their lives and our precious children aren’t here, i do the same and imagine what Matt woukd be doing, coming on this site is so good for us all, its so nice to know we are not alone with our feelings and are able to open up and listen to each other, you dont feel so alone,
Like you Kate its four years and i feel panicked that Matt is drifting further away and feel the need to keep reminding people aboit him, its like he’s fading into the distance but im determined to keep him in the present.
Am so sorry Zoe that you lost your messages, i worry about that all the time but really they are embedded into our memory for ever as we have read them so many times 
, sending much love to you all Michelle xxxx
Oh Zoe, so sorry thats happened. I think Whatsapp back up though so you might br able to recover the lost photos and messages.
Sending love.
Kate xxx
Good morning everyone, so lovely to hear from you, Jim. I have so missed your wise words! You have the spiritual gift of being able to write. I have been thinking of AnneMarie (Joeys mum) and hoping she is doing okay. So many of us walking the same road in different ways but reaching out to each other is so special and I for one so appreciate all of you
Hi all.
Well sat downstairs in the middle of the night for about the millionth time. Sleep seems to be a luxury after loosing a child. There was a time I sit in the dark a gibbering wreck. But those days seem to have passed. These days it’s more a case of going to bed at a normal time and waking with a jolt at 1 or 2am. Getting up, coming downstairs and sitting in my safe place in the small hours
.To suddenly be thinking. What would he be doing now, or how much I miss out on all the normal things that people take for granted. Like, I hope he’s ok. How was his day at work. Or there’s an occasion coming up when we all get together. I ve grown a second skin that enables me to shut down emotionally when other people are enjoying their kids. My wife has 3 grown up children ( adults) who also have children. I often feel on the outside as my boy isn’t hear. When they call at the house talking of holidays or school days or football matches. Or whatever it may be. I always feel slightly like. These are all the things I should have going on in my life. But it all stopped for me the day my boy died. Now I think along the lines that , he’s out there somewhere. And my imagination runs wild thinking that he’s living a life in a parallel universe somewhere else, almost like he didn’t die, he just exists somewhere else.
Part of me remembers him how he was, trapped in that time that fades into the distance and part of me imagines him as he would be today, almost as if his life would have naturally grown. He’d have moved on, matured, taken on new roles. I kid myself he’s out there somewhere,I just haven’t had a catch up with him for a while. I do honestly think that apart from us as parents people genuinely don’t have an understanding of how we think and that we have to carry this forever. It’s easily forgettable for other people to know how everyday little things affect us. But you do get to mask it better as time passes. That’s not to say that without warning we can suddenly burst into tears at any given time. Sometimes we don’t even understand it ourselves. I suppose I’m lucky in a way because I can function properly, something I couldn’t do for such a long time. My wife often points out that she knows I’m still broken inside however much i try to pretend that I’m not. But that’s the price we have to pay. I know deep inside I will never be the person I once was. I know that outsiders treat me now like it’s all forgotten, the same people that would run a mile when it first happened. Truth is I don’t expect anything from anybody. It’s my burden to carry. It gets to a point that you feel you are living with a secret. You don’t want it to define you, but it’s thing that you carry with you in everything you do. I can honestly say I don’t think there is a day gone passed that he’s not in my thoughts. But I’ve learned to just keep it to myself. I suppose we have to. It’s not that we are looking for sympathy or acknowledgement. I think we are looking for an understanding. Not from other people. But an understanding just for our own peace of mind.
I remember being on a coarse at work and the instructor wanted everyone in turn to point to something drastic that had happened to them and share it with the class and then go on to explain how we deal with it. The instructor took the lead and went on to explain how he found out his son was gay and how it affected him and how he deals with it. I remember thinking. " What are you talking about you clown". A guy i sat next to ( a good friend). Had lost people in the army. We both looked at each other with the same thoughts. I could just imagine either one of us standing up and telling our story of loss, to a classroom full of blokes yawning or hearing ooohs and arrrhs. By the way the coarse was about truck driving ( my job). It kind of just confirmed to me that people have know understanding of a real loss. And I wasn’t about to embarrass myself trying to explain to a bunch of people who couldn’t care less. Mainly because they don’t have too. My loss is of no interest to those people so why Should they care. I think the instructor was trying to appease himself talking about something he couldn’t begin to imagine. Needless to say the problems, if you can call them that were his gay son and road rage and divorce ect. It actually became quite laughable. But hey! Each to their own. Hope all this makes sense. I’m just killing time until the sun comes up and another day gets underway.
Ok thanks for listening.
Take care
Jim
Hi Jim and all. Yesterday morning i was walking onevof the dogs in the forest and bumped into a friend on her bike with her dog. We often meet early morning and we stand and chat. Her van had broken down and sadly its not repairable. She has been in touch with We buy any car she said and suddenly i had the picture in my head of myself and Jemma hurriedly picking up my old car that Lisa was using, to takevit to be sold before Brooke saw it was parked near their flat. Handing the keys over and losing the scent of Lisa’s perfume from the car was more than i could bear. We drove away, both of us crying.
So here i was talking to Catriona quite happily then tears streaming down my face. My dog was worried and was giving me a paw looking up at me. Bless his beautiful heart. In the blink of an eye the tears will come.
Love to you Jim and all friends.
Kate xx