I love that photo Zoe. Such a lovely young man. Good to hear from you but goodness me! What a year you have had. Hope you are now on the way to a full recovery and your partnet too.
Love to you and all friends here.
Kate xxx
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Hi Zoe, what a horrible year you have had. I wish you all the best for your recovery. Keep speaking about our boys and girls is how we get through.
Love to all
Chris x
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Hi kate i always think about you when my grandchildren are round.they keep me alive .it makes me think of little Brooke without her mummy thank god she has you all xxx thank you chris for your kind words .we fight through the days on this rollercoaster ride .i hope and pray we all meet again someday xxxxx
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Hi Zoe Lovely to hear from you, I often wonder how you are. Every time I hear rag n bone man singing I think about your lovely Sam and how much he liked listening to him . His voice is so distinctive and I wonder if you are listening as well and if itās making you smile.
I too still find this site helpful , always here when we need it , but very rarely post now. Life has been very up and down the last two years but we keep plodding on hoping as you say, that we will meet them again one day. This time of year is so hard to deal with, but we do get through it. Just another Christmas, resigned to the fact , another one without them. The dagger is not as sharp now ,or maybe we have developed some sort of anaesthetic to survive.
Thinking of you and everyone still travelling on this painful journey. Love Jess x
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Oh jess was hoping you would come on .glad to hear from you. We have been dealt rotten cards but what can we do ā¦life has been cruel and the road long .i wish you love and peace jess xx how you never forgot about sam and rag and bone man ā¦ remember the black horses on the lloyds advert our children galloping free xxxx
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Hello to all the lovely friends on this site, lovely to see posts from you all, its been a while since i posted and just went on by chance and was nice to see some familiar names, we have all travelled this journey together and the support has definitely helped me so much especially in the early days, not sure how weāve all got here but somehow we have and so i want to say a big thank you and send much love to you all 
love Michelle xxxx
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Hello to all lovely friends here. I feel as if we have walked side by side and gathered up more people as we walk our sad path.
It is 6 years since I lost Gemma and in lots of ways it doesnāt feel easier but then how could it? I think we somehow become anaesthetised to it, as someone else said.
But I would not have got through losing Gems without this amazing group.
I am just starting counselling for the first time as I have been struggling so hope it helps.
Much love to you all
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Lovely to hear from you Victoria but sorry you are struggling. I know what you mean though. Its 5 years for us and recently i have been reliving it all, mostly in the middle of the night! Hence feeling drained the next day. Maybe its just the passage of our grief, reawakened after the years we have all been trying to heal. Who knows but we are all here, holding each other up by the armpits. Itās what we do.
Love to you and all friends.
Kate xx
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Dear kate and Victoria, lovely to hear from you both, blessed to have your friendship , Victoria hope the counselling helps, let us know how it goes, i think we all rally around looking after everyone else and giving an outward impression that we are doing well, but we all know that will never be the case, sometimes i think we need to allow ourselves to just let the waves take us under as we cant keep acting like we are ok, its ok not to be ok even in 20+ years it will never be ok, thank goodness we can express our true feelings on this site, big love to all friends old and new xxx
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Thats so true miƧhelle we put our im ok face on .but inside we still hurt so bad i cry .mostly at night when im alone . But we should never feel we cant our babies was alive our whole lifes was loving them .we should never shy away to how we feel deep down .love you all lots big hugs love zoe xx
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Lovely to hear from you Zoe, i can imagine you are keeping busy with your lovely grandchildren, i know how much they loved their uncle, sending you a big hug and much love 
xxx
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Thank you lovely ladyxxx
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For all the people on these lost a child forum. I wonder does anyone ever find peace for themselves. As you read through all the posts. Everyone has their own private struggles. After the loss of a child your world is never the same again. You always feel like you are running out of kilter with everyone else. In my head, my son still very much exists. Just in a different form. The more time that passes from when he died and where Iām at now. It kind of feels irrelevant . You relive the day they left over and over. And while the rest of the world keeps spinning you feel sort of stuck at a moment you canāt move on from. Nobody can see whatās going on inside your head. The little signs you see that trigger memories or emotions. You canāt explain that to people. The other day a few of the blokes I work with all took there sons to watch man united . And one of them sent me a picture of them all together. It was totally innocent and nothing was meant by it. But I looked at the picture and the first thing that came to mind was, I canāt do that. I canāt do anything with my son cause heās not here anymore. I didnāt get upset by it. Because Iām past the initial stages of grief. But things like that come as a reminder that the rest of the world carries on while you have to try and make the best of whatās left of your life while you carry the great void around with you. I have tons of cherished memories of my boy, we were incredibly close and did a million father/ sons things together. But they all stopped when he reached 24. The day that will be etched into my mind till the day I get to meet him again. I have to think I will be with him again one day. Or itās like is life was for nothing. He was the best thing that ever happened to me. The aftermath of child loss is a strange one and everyone has their own stuff to deal with. Of all the 100,s that attended his funeral Iāve still never seen a single one of them, even after all these years. I still live in the same place go to the same shops, yet Iāve never bumped into anyone that used to be in my life from before he died. Infact if I didnāt know any better Iād say the day he died I became invisible. It doesnāt bother me like it did in the beginning. But itās so true when you here the phrase " your life can change in an instant".
My wife and I lead a normal full life doing all the normal stuff. Just in a different direction than we thought we would be.
You get by and carry on one way or another. I remember a guy at work lost his wife and I came home and told my wife about him. I said, you could just tell by looking at him that he was just a hollow shell of a person. My wife said to me, thatās exactly what you were like. Just empty inside, Iām not like that anymore, which is a good sign. I was immensely proud to have been a dad once. And one Iāll be able to tell him that. Ok think Iāve rambled on enough.
Thanks for listening
Take care,
Jim
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Hi Jim ,people like you on this site really help others .ive said many a time you should write a book .you explain this grief world so well .its how we all feel ,my sam was 24 when he passed 2021. And many a night you was on line .your words always put things in a way that we all feel and think.i get it and just want to say thank you for making sense of this rollercoaster ride at times when its so hard to get through a day or night .and for being so honest about your own sadness .and for helping and caring for all of us . Bless you zoe xxxx
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Thank you Zoe. I think we all help each other in here. Just knowing there are others in the same boat makes you realize you are not going mad. I think it helps to touch base with like minded people.
Take care my friend
Jim
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So true, we all need each other .i always think about when you said you had hundreds at your boys funeral. Its so true where do these people all go .life just goes on, thats one of my biggest bug bears, i want to shout sam was here, you can talk about him . Sams friends are getting married having babies .and our hearts are breaking because there life had just begun .they was babies our babies i only hope theres a better place than this xxx
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Jim, I love the way you write and as Zoe says, you should write a book. I think you put into words exactly how we all feel, lost, hollow inside and at times, invisible.
I hate the way the world carries on as though nothing has happened, I have felt as though I want to scream āshe was was here!ā. But of course I wonāt ā¦ Iāll keep on living my life like everyone else, but always with an undercurrent of sadness.
Iām sorry you had to experience people sending you photos of themselves with their sons. It feels so thoughtless. I am sure you will see your lovely boy again, just as I will see Gemma.
In answer to your question, I do feel more at peace now. Not completely because I think that comes with acceptance and that is hard.
Take care and sending love to you all xx
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Hi Jim - Iāve been reading your posts since my daughter died nearly 3 years ago. Itās always good to see your thoughts. Keeping on keeping on is the only real āchoiceā we have. What Iāve learnt since my daughter died is that I will never āget over itā but I can learn to live with it. Iām a different person from how I was before my daughter died. In some ways Iām a kinder, more tolerant person but thereās a big hole in my heart since I lost her. Morning, noon and night I am thinking of her. I feel like I am multi tasking my thoughts and grief so that I can do the usual routine things that everybody has to do. On the surface Iām coping and there are some good things in my life, I can laugh, tell a joke and function. Inside Iām still missing her and going over and over her life and her death. Iāve had counselling and it certainly helped. Wasnāt until nearly the end of my counselling that my counsellor told me she had lost a daughter. Maybe thatās why she was such a good counsellor and had such empathy. On my final session she told me that she still grieves every day despite her daughter dying some years ago. One of the last things she said is that the pain is always there but it is not the only thing that defines her life. Itās hard to not let it be the single thing that overshadows everything but, the way I think about it is that itās not my time to die yet. For unfathomable reasons it was my daughters time to die. Itās not fair and itās painful beyond measure. I am alive and sheās not. Thatās how it is, so Iām limping but keeping on. Things are a whole heap more manageable over time but the loss is still just below the surface for me but I am staying alive till itās my turn to die, so Iām making the best I can of it. The love doesnāt go away but I have learned to get on with whatās left in my life. Hope this doesnāt sound all miserable cos there are good things in the here and now as well as grief for the overwhelming loss. X
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Dear friends. As you say Jim, life is never the same after losing a child.
Like you and your son, Lisa and i did so much together. Socially and working together. We were very close as i am with Jemma too. Although Jemma left for Uni at 18 so we didnt have so much time together as i had with Lisa. I often think that i was given all those years of working with her because unbeknown to me, she was not going to be with us much longer. Now, Jemma comes home every 3rd weekend to spend time with Brooke. She is the best Auntie for sure and Brooke adores her. I think too that Jemma not being in a relationship and having no commitments to anyone else, this was always mapped out as she was to become such an important part of Brookes life. Strange isnāt it?
Anyway, life is what is here and now and we just have to get on with it and be forever thankful for the time we had with our beautiful children.
Much love to all.
Kate x
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Thank you for the replies. Kate , Zoe, Victoria,
Nell. I read your post and can definitely see all the similarities. It is always bubbling away just under the surface. We do reach a stage were we donāt let the pain and sadness define us. I think each of us has our own take on things, as to how itās changed us and what we have learned ect. In the beginning I was so numb and shell shocked, I thought the pain would swallow me up and just leave a shadow of were I used to be. But as time slowly marches on you find yourself again, and the one question everyone asks is how long will I feel this terrible sadness. Well the answer is, youāll feel it for the rest of your life. But you learn how to manage it. We are amazing as humans. Yes you still have all the if buts and maybes and the aching heart. But how many times have you put a brave face on and gone and done something you really didnāt want to do. Because you are distinctively fighting back. The other thing Iāve learned is, you think about things differently and you see situations that others donāt. Something else that I saw a change in me, I have always been a worrier, I worry about people. But I donāt anymore. I came to understand that all the worry in the world changes nothing, I care about people, but me worrying has no impact on their life whatsoever.
It would be amazing if we could all find the answers we are looking for. But thatās life, we canāt always have what we want, and there is no explanation for that it just is what it is. We carry on waking up in the mornings and get stuck in to the day and over time sometimes your mind just has a way of figuring stuff out. Things settle in your head and there is a kind of peace to be found, itāll never be the ultimate peace of mind. But you live to appreciate things once again. Iām quite lucky where I live, itās high up and 2 minutes walk to the moors. When I go for a walk on a clear day you can see for 50/60 miles. Itās my safe place.
Ok thanks for listening
Jim
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