Thursday 8 November 2012

Three Years On

Tomorrow morning will mark what would have been Emma's 3rd birthday. It is so weird to think that 3 years ago today we were anticipating our lives changing but we had no clue how much.

This is a shitty time of the year for us. The weeks running up to this date getting increasingly fraught and as soon as the poppies start to appear on people's lapels it feels like the horrible count down has begun.

Posts on this blog have become less and less frequent and that's because I have less and less to say. No that's not true. I have less and less NEW things to say. I could easily week after week jot down thoughts on how shit it is when your child dies and how terrible I feel and how much I miss her, but at a certain point it just becomes scab-picking. But it feels wrong to pass this milestone without marking it in some way.

So I'm marking this time by going back over some old posts that I wrote over the last couple of years.

I write a lot more now than I did back when I started this blog. When I write something now; a script, an article, whatever, after a few weeks go by, when I look at what I wrote I am far enough removed from it that I can look at it with fresh eyes. When I look at the posts I wrote over the last 3 years its almost like they were written by someone else. It's almost like our story happened to someone else. I read posts like the one that documented the two days she was alive http://goo.gl/WaZD0 and I feel a terrible sense of 'what a terrible thing to happen to that poor guy' then I remember that poor guys is me and that this isn't just some tragic story I've read, but my life.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not completely removed from the events. It so incredibly rare that a day will go by when I don't think of Emma, or remember the events of those days or wonder what she would be like now. But after the three years that Rach and I have spent putting our lives back together it's odd to read about another couple who were barely able to function because of how crippled they were with grief.

Nowadays we are a lot better. Not back to how we were before, that isn't going to happen. We still hurt, and grieve and remember, but we also laugh and work and function. And we don't even have to remind ourselves to laugh and work and function.

I'll finish on this. If you are reading this because you have gone through a similar loss then you should know that things will get better. It'll take a very, very long time and things won't go back to how they were before, but they will get better.

Happy Birthday Sweetheart x

Monday 12 March 2012

Gratitude to a Little Dog

As readers to this blog will no doubt know, when Emma died we were utterly devastated. Rach and I really were broken people living in a state of total limbo. About 6 months after she died we made a bold decision. We decided to get a dog. I know it doesn't sound bold, but Rach had never had a dog and I hadn't had a dog since I was about 4. So we really didn't have a clue what we were letting ourselves in for. But we got a dog. A miniature daschund that we called Pepper.

Oh my God she was so much work. The training, the refusal to walk on a lead, the dog dirt, the peeing, the utter, utter destruction and the expense.

Pepper as a puppy was a nightmare. But somewhere in that nightmare Pepper put us back together again. Having that little dog with that unconditional love just made getting ourselves back together after Emma dying so much easier.

When Rach got pregnant with Aoife. We were genuinely worried about how the dog would be with a baby. Could we trust her? Turns out we didn't need to worry. Aoife and Pepper were totally besotted with each other. Thick as thieves is how we describe them. When ever Pepper got the chance she'd lick Aoife all over despite our best efforts otherwise. Aoife when she is being fed always, quite intentionally drops things for Pepper to eat. In fact Aoife thinks so much of her that her first proper word wasn't "Daddy" or "Mummy" it was "Pepper"!

Rach has commented so often About how grateful she is to that little dog. "She fixed us" she says.

About 3 hours ago Pepper was hit by a car. She was too little and the car was going too fast and Pepper died of her injuries within minutes.

Not since Emma died had this whole family been this devastated.

In memory of Pepper 07/03/10 - 11/03/12 the little dog that fixed us