(Jo Powell kindly shared this moving reflection some years ago. Sadly, Jo died in April 2023. I still miss her joyful face and caring nature very much. She was a very special human.) I was pacing the landing with my teething baby at 3am last night and all I could think of was you. AsContinueContinue reading “Guest post: Thoughts of loss and hope at Christmas”
Tag Archives: Emotion
Halloween just got scary
[I didn’t post this blog about Halloween at the time, I suppose to avoid offending anyone or to put a damper on the fun, but reading back on it, it’s certainly worth sharing. It’s not a major worry for me now, and who knows how I’ll feel about it in the years to come, butContinueContinue reading “Halloween just got scary”
There is always tomorrow…
Some days I feel like grief has slapped me in the face so hard. This was one of them, about four months (in July) after Abi died. I wrote about this particular day as it was a full 24 hours of challenging thoughts and emotions… Last night, I dreamed about ending my life. Well, toContinueContinue reading “There is always tomorrow…”
Family comforts … but who’s comforting who?
The death of a child, quite naturally, has a huge impact on an entire family and the aftershocks can be widespread and ongoing. In my case, my immediate family (husband and other two children) were emotionally torn, yet we had to find a way to continue to live our lives together, finding new routines andContinueContinue reading “Family comforts … but who’s comforting who?”
Balancing the kindness of strangers…
[Taken from notes written around July 2013] After Abi died, we kept people informed via Facebook, which was a great help to us as it saved having to contact lots of people at an impossibly difficult time and also prevented any misunderstanding about what had happened to her – many people who knew Abi wereContinueContinue reading “Balancing the kindness of strangers…”
Water Bugs and Dragonflies
We came upon this story when preparing Abi’s funeral and the vicar read it out. We knew many people of all ages would be there and wanted a reading that everyone could understand and, hopefully, find comfort from. The history behind this popular story is as follows. Doris Stickney and her minister husband were lookingContinueContinue reading “Water Bugs and Dragonflies”
How many children does a bereaved mother have?
The note about what to write in a card to a grieving person in my last post seemed to strike a cord with some readers. Some recognised the uncertainty of what to do for the best, others realised they’d never considered how this simple gesture could be interpreted by the recipient, others recalled past occasionsContinueContinue reading “How many children does a bereaved mother have?”
A grief observed… approaching the first anniversary
In this crazy first year as a grieving mother, I’ve learned an awful lot about bereavement. Far more than I expected to know at my age, having lost a child so suddenly. Just like many people, I was living in blissful ignorance of this feeling before my daughter died – oh, how I miss that!ContinueContinue reading “A grief observed… approaching the first anniversary”
The whirlpool of grief
A friend shared an insightful diagram with me called ‘The whirlpool of grief’, which I thought would be good to share here (see illustration far below). As soon as I saw this, it made perfect sense to me. I recognised the many elements to the ‘process’ that were illustrated. I call it a ‘process’ becauseContinueContinue reading “The whirlpool of grief”
Chasing Dragonflies 