Dear Alex, we head to France tomorrow...

30^th july 2012

Dear Alex,

This is big. It really is. I feel, at times, so very tiny and yet I have to be so grown up. At times I feel swamped with sadness, and it really is strange how it jumps up at you when you least expect it, and I just break, tears I am scared to cry as I don’t know where they are going, when, or if, I’ll be able to stop…

Guilt, yes, I feel that. At going away tomorrow. Guilt that I just might enjoy it. Guilt that maybe I do need a break. Fear of acknowledging this, is strong. Sometimes it’s better not to think, and to just do. But there’s too much involved in this. Every day now for 10 months I have seen you, made the journey wherever you are. Done the kids, the house, the rest. Although I wouldn’t say our days are ever the same, the routine of knowing where I am, our base, my comforts, my house the retreat. The computer and writing to you, exhaling my thoughts and feelings.

I am scared to do this. It feels so big. Doing a trip to France where we used to live, there will be many ghosts I think I will need to lay to rest. And maybe now is the time to do this. Face this. Maybe I am ready? We lived, we loved, we settled, we were staying, until, when on the 4^th October last year life was flipped on its head, and everything we had planned together, the life we were leading together, stopped.

Since then, I have become the person that has had to make all the decisions, run our life, the kids, be there to try and will you on. And everyday I have done this, and every day, I have no idea how I got through it, and every day I am surprised I have managed another night without you beside me.

Going to France is not because I feel ‘I need a break’ I actually don’t want one, not without you! It’s for the kids, and boy are they excited, and that makes me happy, that I really am doing something so exciting for them.

We left so suddenly, after such a trauma. We suddenly had to forge a new life in England, the kids didn’t know England, France was all they knew. And this last month in particular I have found us all asking questions, the kids ask when our time in England will be up, when we are going back to France. We felt life was on hold till you were back to normal, and we’d all go back and lift off from the part where you were OK. We are having to accept we are no more in limbo, this is it now, we are staying put. We know deep down, although I think it’s still too much to confront, that you are not going to spring back just as you were…We’re gradually letting that which we thought would be a realism become an unrealism.

I am scared. I know you will be OK, people will visit, the staff will explain why I ma not in everyday. I am not too worried about you, I think you will be OK. I am scared that in going back, on holiday, it’s another huge acceptance, we are visiting, we are no longer there. We lived there for 5-and-a-half years. No intention of going anywhere. I’m scared because I am facing it on my own, again, without you holding me, protecting me, telling me it’s alright, we’re on a new and very different path now.

And it draws me back to my first sentence, that I feel so very, very small. And yet I have to be so very grown up, do all these things without you.

What it all comes down to is how am I going to cope with not being able to see you? Getting my fix of you on a daily basis is one of the things that gets me through…

I am just so hopelessly, helplessly in love with my man, that I don’t know how I am possibly going to be strong enough to not have that part of routine, that part that gives me strength, to be without you, that’s my biggest fear.

Going back, saying ‘ok, we are no longer here as a family', and having to do it, confront it without you, driving by where we used to live, the life we used to live there together, the memories, that I have had to block out to continue-will I be strong enough to cope with all this, baby?

As I say goodbye today, realising it’s not going to be till next Friday that I will be able to see you again, the sobbing that chokes tears of already missing you, knowing that till next Friday I have to do a major thing without you, just is too much. But do you know what you do? You smile, you don’t cry at all, you smile, cuddle me, pushing your head into my hair and tear streaming face and you smile. I know you know I’ll be alright. I think you think it will do me, and the kids good. I know you think I am doing the right thing…

This in itself has given me the strength to catch that plane, and give the kids a holiday to remember-the first, and the last (I hope) without you my angel…

Have a peaceful, restful sleep, work hard in your therapies, look forward to me coming back. I’ll be racing through that Centre door the minute I am back…you know that!

I love you Alex Wood, what a journey this is, how emotions  can feel stronger than your physical being, but I will make it through, your smile told me that.

I will miss you more than you can ever imagine, will ever realise…that’s why I write to you, so one day, you can look back and see how all this was for me…

I love you for eternity…

Me xxxxxxxxxx