Dear Alex, Dinner for one in a bowl....

September 10^th 2012

Dear Alex,

Asides all the other news-which I have been filling you in on, and everyone already knows about…

I watch our little boy for a while, sleeping peacefully, shattered, tucked up in my bed. The bath runs in the background, I am frazzled.

I will probably forget the bath is running, I have no recollection of where I have put anything down…dried clothes now wet again hang out on the line, as they have done for a few days now. Uniforms I have rushed on a quick wash, a job I didn't have time to do at the weekend, the cats finally fed, the dog still not.

So many things left unseen to, and the worry that I have not got back to those who have wanted to support, offered encouragement, I want to hug everyone, say thank you with to every individual, but I am swamped. This is of course so incredible, the responses to our plight have been more than heart-warming, they have made the difference to me, changed my perception on humanity-reaffirmed how much people pull together, how people see something they care about and strive to put themselves out and what an influx of encouragement, help, support, advice I have received. I have been blown away…

I now sit, I hear the running water from the taps in the bath, I see scattered uniforms on my bedroom floor, and a photo of you…nothing will bring that back, nothing will bring you back…no matter what I do, how hard I work, how much I do, how well or badly I do, whether I fail at things, succeed, YOU are the thing I cannot change…

I suddenly feel emptiness and loneliness and I mourn so much for you, my man, being by my side. So much has changed, everything has changed.

I get rushed along ‘getting on with it’ rarely stopping to pause, because if I do, what then? What will I have to face? The fear of being alone mother as a mother, without you, my husband fathering the kids, with out you being my husband, the person you were, my everything in every way, not being as you once were…how will I ever face that?

At times it floods up, catches me, rips me apart, I have to stop the flash backs, I can’t face that…I patch up the open wounds to carry on...

I plough on hoping, praying. Others join me, I am blessed and encouraged and carried along by this…

But really, Alex, there is nothing that will plug up that hole. There never will be. That is why I have to be brave, trudge onwards on the ‘hope’ path. I am more realistic these days, I know and face at times, you’ll never be how you were before. I have to be more realistic; it’s nearly been a year. That marker is there to ransom me, my emotions, challenge me daily; scratching at my heart and harassing my soul ‘he’s still not back, he’s still not home…’

Dinner for one in a bowl, writing to you my comfort, I miss you, Alex, I just miss you…

Me xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx