Your favourite day

I decided to post on this blog when important occasions occur.

Today is your favourite day of the year! You felt that this day should be more celebrated than Christmas cos this was the day that freedom was given to all Christians all over the world.

Without today you would not be where you are!  You always made sure everyone in your community new that it was a huge day for Christians by putting up celebration posters on your window.  Wow, the window must look bare now. Everyone will know you are no longer there cos your window is empty.

Today is an important day, and I wondered if you did anything different on days like today up there?  It would be so nice to be able to pop up and take a look around but I guess once you go there you don't want to come back.  I wish you could come back for day visits every now and again, but then they would be too little and too often. I miss you xx

A final goodbye

I feel strong enough to face each day now as you would have wanted. So this is my final goodbye. I miss you terribly and feel I've lost one the most important people in my life! I love you xx

New sight Dad!

Hey Dad, this is my final post as I feel I have said everything that I needed to get out of my system. I feel this weekend that I turned a corner and so I thought I would use this post to mention sight.

Firstly I knew that you had very strong feelings over organ donation and I expressed those feelings to the intensive care staff and unfortunately the blood infection had affected your organs and so the only thing that could be used were your corneas. Amazingly thanks to your wonderful gift a man in Yorkshire has gone from being blind to being able to see. How amazing is that!!!  I feel so thrilled with that.

The other aspect of sight is from my personal point of view. I have a different outlook on life now that you are gone. I have changed I feel it. I am no longer afraid to say how I feel and to do what is best for me and my family. You cannot go through an experience like this without it changing you.

And so I have come to the end of this phase of grief. I have had 5 weeks of despair and anger and now I feel like my vision is becoming clearer and my head is coming out of the clouds. No doubt I will visit lots of negative emotions every day but I feel like everything I felt trapped in has been emptied out and I am ready to move forward in my life. I love you and will never forget you. every moment of the day you are in my thoughts but I have to make the most of this precious gift of life that you played your part in giving me.

So onward and upwards dear dad, onwards and upwards. Til we meet again, keep a place for me xxx

A great weekend, not that you missed out.

Hey Dad, I have returned from my adventure to the Charcot Marie Tooth conference in Conventry and would have had so much to tell you if you had been here.  The one thing I know is that to you it's completely irrelevant as you don't need to think about cures and treatments for CMT but I know you were a huge supporter of what they do.

I actually enjoyed myself! I really did. I was really apprehensive about the weekend, cos if anything was going to drag up all this grief, it would be talking about the one thing that was our common thread, the bit that went wrong in the four of us, but it was OK! Actually it was more than OK, it was a breath of fresh air. There were plenty of people who had lost loved ones recently and we sat and chatted about you all like one big therapy session.

I really need to take a leaf out of your book and just be me!  I mean there is nothing essentially wrong with the real me so why does she hide so much? I have come back from the conference with more work and sold a lot of choccies so that's always good.

This situation that I have found myself in is not ideal, heck it's not even comfortable, but I am determined to come out the other side a better version of me!

I am really struggling with church right now as everything reminds me of you, and I find it so hard seeing the same faces week in week out and answering the questions over "how i am". Not sure how to change that one, maybe I just do nothing and work on the real me.

One thing that does keep bugging me is that I keep, for a split second, think you are still here and within a few seconds it hits me you're not; those are the hardest moments. I wish you were still here cos life would still feel like it did xx

We should have been on a plane now

The last thing I remember seeing when I cleaned your living room was your white board that kept a list of all your important dates.  The bottom one read: April 17th USA two weeks.

Then you got ill and while you were in hospital we made the decision to postpone the trip. I'm not sure if you could hear me when  you were on the ventilator but I told you we'd do it when you got better.  All you friends in the USA were so upset at the news you were ill and were praying.  I felt so guilty for postponing the trip because everyone else couldn't go, but I couldn't go with you.

My thinking was that if you did recover and at this point there was less reason to assume you wouldn't, you would be in hospital for a long time and then needing a lot of rehabilitation. I couldn't even think about taking a trip in the middle of that.

And now I have to make that trip at some point without you. The rest of the gang will be there but with a vital member missing. How do I deal with that Dad? You'd tell me to "just get on with it".  I have amazing memories of our last trip together, even though you created riots wherever you went!  So I thought I'd share some with the readers as well:

You and Arran pretending to be great at croquet

We had lunch with the bears

eight hours on a plane could make anyone look like this

the USA make it bigger, make it badder!

You found a thrown

sneak a few of the grapes you picked

It really was this big (pity it was plastic)

Friday funkiness with Dad

This was the song you sung to me time and time again, you loved singing it in your fake country accent lol! Good times. I can look back on this and smile, thats something !!

People keep telling me...

Hey Dad,

People keep telling me that you were an inspiration, that you were a breath of fresh air, someone who told it like it was, please or offend. I keep hearing people say that you lived every day for God and that you did everything asked of you and so you had run your race, earlier than most, but none the less you had completed the work set for you.

Everyone misses you, many wish you could come back. There's no one to take your place and I guess never will. That's what happens when you live your life in such a way that it affects everyone around you! And I think that it's not until a person has gone that this is really known. Depending on how you live your life, depends on the size of the hole you leave. Well you my dear dad, have left a massive hole. Me and the boys have a giant hole following us around and many others feel the loss of you not being here.

So I thought that this would be a great tribute to you:

I'm trying to fix the things that can't be fixed

Hey Dad,

You know I am not the tidiest person in the world. My house looks lived in! You can tell that four people live here.  Since you've gone untidiness is really getting to me!  I have all of your belongings from the flat under my stairs and your treasured possessions in a box under the table.  There are letters from all different types of organisations that need to be filed in your paperwork.  The thing is the house is no different to how it usually is, but I've changed.

When I get to work the office is full of season stuff and work that needs to be sent out in the next few days and everything is everywhere and it is really getting to me!

I have been reading the book that I posted about and the writer has now covered the issue of fixing things! Having to be in control because you have lost control of something else.  Loosing a loved one really does shake the foundation from under your feet!  So now I am  needing order and structure because I have lost my footing and feel shaken up.  I am trying to make things better that don't need me to because I need to do something!

Words are not needed

Grief shared is grief abated

That's a big word hey Dad? I had to look it up to understand it, but thankfully when you tap the word on the kindle (it's an electronic book reading device) it gives the definition.

People think that because I am not talking out loud about my feelings that I am in someway not grieving.  Thing is Dad, I am opening up to those I feel safe to be vulnerable with, does that make sense?  I am fragile right now (I may not look it to most). One wrong word and I think I may possibly shatter into a thousand pieces.

My new work colleagues have been amazing! Maybe they are not close enough to me to know me yet and so opening up to them is easier?  I talk to the MR all the time but don't want to keep dragging over the same things with him, cos he's grieving too!  I talk to the boys about you all the time, you are in almost every conversation.

Shar T has come up with a new strategy for carrying out church stuff it's called "pod's way" which simply means see a need, help that need out and keep doing what your asked to do without moaning, complaining or giving up your commitment. I know you'd shrug it off, but it's not just me who sees you this way.

JP's other half misses you terribly and wishes you could come back!  I wish that too but if you didn't come back that Sunday night, I knew you never would! And that's OK. I know the reasons why and I accept them. I just miss you sooooo much that I wish, really wish that for one minute (only one) that you could come back and just give me a hug and say it's all gonna be OK.

I'm sharing my grief with those who read this so here's hoping that it will become less intense, to reduce in amount and to become smaller. How that happens I do not know but this is where it starts.

xx

I need to make this valid

I know it's a strange one Dad, but it really hit home to me that just as in life we make things valid, we also need to give validity to someone dying. You know over and over again I tell people how you lived your life everyday for what you believed in and as a result you got called home early.

Remember all those years you told me you would die in your 80's?  When you first passed away, I felt cheated of about twenty years with you, but I then began to realise that you had indeed run your race and you had done it so quickly that you did in fact gain twenty years in eternity.

I talk about you every day, I suppose it's away of keeping you here as well as me declaring to the world how proud I am to have had a Dad like you. I can't help but feel fatherless right now; as a Daddy's girl that's just normal right? The book I am reading is really helping me to realise that it's OK to be doing what I am doing and that quite surprisingly I am a textbook case for dealing with grief. How odd is that? I have never known us to be textbook lol!

I will tell your story for as long as I need to, to whoever I need to and not worry about telling it again and again. I'm a work in progress and just like you did, I'm doing this "my way" ;0)

love you always xxx

Looking over my shoulder

 

This photo caught me unawares on a trip in 2009 to friends in the USA. It was your first trip abroad in about 15 years. I didn't realise you were looking over my shoulder. You usually went and got yourself a vat of coffee for the long trip!  Just as you were looking over my shoulder then, I hope you are still doing this same.

Thank you

So yesterday was full of regrets. Today I thought I should redress the balance and fill this post with all the things I am thankful for. Here goes....

I am thankful that you gave me my life.
I am thankful that you were here when I got married, had kids, graduated and started the business.
I am thankful that the youngest is like you, and is a little bit of you left on earth.
I am thankful for having believed in me.
I am thankful that you trusted me.
I am thankful that you have left me a secure future.
I am thankful that you kicked me up the butt when I needed it.
I am thankful that you were so creative and talented and that your life's work is sitting in my office as I type this surrounding me.
I am thankful that you trusted the plan for my life.
I am thankful that you picked yourself up and made the best of things when bad stuff happened.
I am thankful that we had 30 years of memories that will stay with me forever.
I am thankful that so many people knew and loved you for you!
I am thankful that you never let hurtful and horrible people get to you.
I am thankful that you had such a loving heart.
I am thankful that so many lives were changed because of your generosity over your 64 years.
I am thankful that you made the days after you had gone easier for me by having made all the arrangements ahead of time.
I am thankful that we had 10 days together where even for the most part, you couldn't respond, we still communicated.
I am thankful that you had no fear of dying and that you were actually looking forward to being in heaven.
I am thankful that you had told me your wishes and your desires years before I needed to know, as it made all of that easier to do.
I am thankful that two blind people will soon be able to see because you wanted to donate whatever you could after you didn't need your body anymore.
I am thankful that you were my dad, no one else's, and that you were an amazing Dad! You taught me how to love, laugh and live and for that I will be forever grateful.

Thank you xx

Regrets.. Who was I kidding?

Hey Dad,

You known when I told you, towards the start of this blog that I had not regrets? Who was I kidding? I have so many regrets!  So I thought what better way to get them out of my head than putting them on this post.

I regret not ringing you more.
I regret not coming to the doctors appointments with you to get the treatment you needed.
I regret not spending more time with you in 30 years.
I regret moaning about your eccentiricites, how much I wish you could be here now and act like you did.
I regret not knowing more about your life.
I regret not asking all the questions that now are too late to ask.
I regret not telling you I loved you, more than I did.
I regret asking you to move to Caerau and then leaving you there when I moved to Neath.
I wish more than anything that I could have been there on the Sunday morning before they sedated you. 
If I had known that you would never wake up then I would have said everything I needed to say.
I regret as a teenager treating you with contempt.
I regret not listening to you more.
I wish you could be there when the boys graduate.
I wish you could be there when I make my first Million.
I wish you could be there when I sell my first business.
I wish you could be there when the boys marry.
I regret that we didn't go for one last coffee together.
I regret that we didn't do the art exhibition while you were alive.


Thanks for listening x

I AM actually grieving

Hey Dad, I started to really worry that I wasn't getting to grips with you passing. I was trying to fill my days with doing, and feeling angry all the time. I started to get frustrated and hurt that other people had seemed to be moving on from you dying but for me life has stood still. I felt guilty that I it was like life had lost its meaning for me, even tho I still have the MR, the boys and some wonderful friends.

So you know me, I am proactive in getting everything sorted out and so rather than "talk" to someone about where I was at and how I am feeling, I decided to read some books on grief. I started with this book, as it came highly recommended on the Internet, with lots of great reviews from people going through what I am going through, and you know what Dad.... it has really helped. I have cried through every page up to now but that's a good thing right?

I have gained the reassurance that I am grieving!  By experiencing all of the above stuff I mentioned, I have in fact been grieving. This is grief! Wow what a relief that I am going through the process.

The book is showing me that I need to work through everything my own way and that there is no right or wrong during this time, and that time is not a healer but just the longer you live with it the more you become aware of the reality.

The book is making me think up every detail of you getting sick, not recovering, your passing and the aftermath and Dad I am ready to start dealing with it, I really am!  I know you'd tell me to get on with it, and not to miss you as much as I do, but it's hard when you a Dad who was a legend! You have been a massive part of my life and your missed every hour not just every day!

Love you Dad x

Is this what it's like?

You'll never guess what

Hey Dad,

I have the best news for you, Our M is getting married, so it seems more than likely now that your family name will go on after all. I know his lovely wife to be met you in hospital and I can't wait to meet her too.  A bit of happy news for a change!

However my happiness is tinged with fear. I can't help but feel that the wedding is going to be such a painful reminder that you are no longer here with us.  What do I do Dad? How do I face the pain head on?  Everytime I try it's just too much to take so I just try and remember happy thought's instead. I wish I knew how to do this.

Memories to last forever

Hi Dad,

I've had a lovely weekend away with the MR.  We travelled to North Wales, and it brought back such happy memories. Remember the year me and you caught a bus to Rhyl?  It absolutely poured down and for some random reason Owen Money was doing a tour of wales for BBC and was stood on Rhyl Sea Front, wind blowing, rain pouring, all in the name of entertainment.  We laughed so much that day, about the most stupid of things. We went to sea world and spent hours enjoying being surrounded  by water and yet we stayed dry.

And so this was only the second time I had headed to the north of the country and seeing as the only real way to get there is via the mountains and valleys, we took our time and stocked up on coffee and off we went.  The scenery was breath taking but that wasn't the most exciting part.

We stayed at Pentre Mawr Country House, with our own private hot tub. After dinner we went back to our lodge and jumped in the 40 degree water.  It was 6 degree's outside and 40 under the water but with a view like this,

 nobody was thinking about the cold.  I sat in the bubbles with the MR looking up at the stars and working out how you get to where you are. Seeing as we technically can't put our finger on where you are it would be difficult to work that out, but that's not the point!  It got me thinking about how I would love to visit you, get you to meet me at the pearly gates and just reassure me that you're having a wonderful time.  I've made my "wish" and will patiently wait to see you again.

So I have stored one more memory, the first major memory I have had without you. I have never seen such a magnificent sky on such an amazing night. The universe really is breathtaking.

Let me know you're happy Dad, cos it may help me to get on without you. It's been three weeks today since you left us and it doesn't feel any better, maybe it never will.  I miss you, wherever you are up there above the stars x

Your art is not what you think it is

Hey Dad,

I am busy looking for venues for your art exhibition.  There are so many people who want to come see your work.If you were here now I think you wouldn't believe it. You were always so reluctant to show your work as you felt people wouldn't appreciate it but the comments from the people who have seen it are really exciting.  I hope God gives you a sneak peek of the memorial so that you can see how much people love your work.

I am really enjoying organising the memorial as I feel that I am doing something positive in the light of your passing rather than sitting feeling sorry for myself all the time.  Venue's are proving to be a little tricky but purple Sharon has given me some great ideas.

Everyone is really looking forward to your memorial as it will be a celebration of you rather than the funeral which was a time to say goodbye.  You'll have people from all over the place popping in to see your work and I am going to feel so proud to see your work there.  We can't go back in time and I know you wouldn't have regrets, I just wish you could see how popular your art really is. Love you Dad. x