Dear Alex, with love from me on your 33rd birthday…

January 24^th 2012.

Dear Alex, your 33^rd birthday…

Before, our life was full to the brim, noise, outings, innings, kids, chickens, ducks, cats and a gay dog. ‘Never a moment's peace’ and we were left wondering, finally, in our times alone in the evenings, in between putting various kids back into bed, what wicked, wicked things we’d done in our previous lives?!

Now, it’s all different, the only animals left are the cats and the dog, all vaccinated up and ready for our departure, leaving our ‘dream’ of growing all our own, being as green as we could, and giving our kids something they would always have-another language, spoken with the local accent, experiencing another way of living, another culture. 

You spent your days working, coming in to train and study to be a personal trainer, in order to help other’s fulfil their potential, health wise and fitness wise. I was about to start teaching English too part time. Then all of a sudden, you come back after your first rugby training in over ten years, unwell, as I have never seen you, suffering, and two days later are diagnosed with a blood clot in the brain.

The initial prognoses, after your first brain operation if you made it at all, which was extremely doubtful, (I was told to ‘be prepared you may never see him again’), was then to expect you in a coma for how long, they could not tell me, then things took an unexpected turn for the worse, a second blood clot developed, and you went in for your second brain surgery not 30 hours later.

This time, I was told you may not even survive the operation itself. Then I had to wait two weeks for you to be ‘out of the woods’ not knowing if each time I saw you would be my last.

After this, baby, you are in a coma for two and a half months, but your fight, your subconcious drive, your love, soul, your connection with us, brought you out of the coma they had told me was at Glasgow level 3, you may never have woken up. You, sweetheart, defied all this...

Today, we prepare for an imminant return to England, believeing you will make far better progress. Before I figured I didn’t do ‘not much’ on a daily basis, but now, with the move, packing, finding schools, organising animals, kids, daily chores, school, homework, visits to see you, cooking, cleaning, oh yes, my floors are still mopped every night! Tip runs, Brocante runs, paper work, letters cancelling things, potential new tenants visiting this house for when I depart, emails, Dr appointments, oh, I won’t carry on, my point is, in relation to what I did before, I was metaphorically sat on my pie ass eating all the pies in comparison.

If I have not been looking for my sunglasses for two weeks, and eventually finding them in the fridge, or my keys in the bin, cancelling my passport and getting a new one, only to find it in the drawer four days later, commenting to a friend that the dude waving his arm up and down all day on the side of the motor way with a flag must be a) reeeaalllly p*ss*d at his job, and b) his arm must surely just effing be killing him, for her to turn round and tell me slowly and deliberately that ‘Tamsyn, it’s a manikin sweetie’, waking up to find at least two kids in my bed who just 'snuck in', then I know I am having a good day.

The thing is baby; I am doing it all to hold our family as tightly together as we did as a unit before your accident. You inspire me, and continue to. You have been determined to fight, determined from the word go, and your smile (which is about all the communication I get these days, a few odd laughs too) is worth everything I do, and I’d do it five times over to see you smile. That which the Dr’s diagnosed in the beginning, that you would be in your bed for the rest of your life, only able to communicate with blinking, it’s not true to say I couldn’t care less, but you are still HERE, and still you, and that’s what counts. People ask me how I can always be smiling, despite, and it’s because I still have you, you are here, and still our kids' daddy. I am so very aware it may not have been this way....*(having just read this, I obviously have frequent moments of being in the pits of despair, but I guess, that goes without saying...)

The kids summed this up fantastically after seeing you the other day, they asked me why we couldn’t just bring you home and make you better at home? To them, your ‘state’ does not disturb them, does not change their feelings about you, or the feelings they know you have for them, you are just their dad.

With all you are battling, all you are fighting, and in it all being clinically blind, not able to speak and your movements limited, you amaze me. Sometimes it gets too much, you try desperately, contorting your mouth and trying to make a noise, trying to tell me something, and you can’t, and this makes you cry. But baby, I always know what you would be saying to me, we have no need for words at the moment, I understand you.

Shortly, we will back in England, I know what the move to France meant to you, to us, for our kids, but the kids see it as a new adventure-we all need to see things more through our children’s eyes, the world would be a much less complicated place.

You will get there one day my baby, I know you, so I know you will. I am prepared for however long this takes, I know we are talking years, but when we promised each other, in front of God, our parents, that we would love each other ‘in richness and in poorness, through sickness and health, till death do us part’ I know we meant it from the depths of our souls. You have me for the rest of your life, we have each other for the rest of our lives, and even if, this is you, you stay as you are (which I do not believe) I will always be your devoted wife.

You are, and have always been, and continue to be my hero, my inspiration, my muse, my idol, my comfort, strength, and soul mate.

Here’s to a better 34^th Birthday, the rest of our lives together, and our next journey, England again, together, it could have been so different…

I love you around the universe and back my angel,

Be mine forever,

Me xxxxxxxxx

Happy Birthday Daddy! We love you....xxxx

Sorry, wasn't that much light at the bus stop this morning, but you get the gist!

All things come to an end....

Our mattress...

Going for walks, unrealistically beautiful, mountains in view,

Higher trees you could not be nearer to,

Forest you pass, and big open fields,

A wood pecker smartly coloured darts right in front of us.

Horses bold and standing strong,

Grass up to our elbows,

Flowers swaying like songs.

Waiting for the bus, on mornings cold.

Playing at ‘toupi’ battles,

Telling rhymes, calling the dog back,

Playing I spy, passing the time.

Now we wait, before our new journey unfolds

The fresh air and misty breath of the 5 of us.

Waiting to hear about our new life,

As yet, untold.

We are now, here, at an end,

Time to leave our well made friend,

The children think they’re French, it’s all they’ve known

Their life, their language, how they’ve grown.

Going back to our 'mother land',

The path for us has shifted, and

You not there to hold my hand.

Our way of life, the things we’ve been, together, trying to do,

It all stops now,

Other ways of living to go through.

Ridding the unecessaries, going through all our ‘stuff’

It’s only things of this world,

For me, owning things, I’ve had enough,

I get on with it, ruthlessly giving it away,

But the one thing, which I have to part with,

I just cannot, no money could value it, No amount could pay.

Our mattress where we slept,

Legs entwined,

Over this, I have wept and wept.

Now sleeping in your imprint,

Where your body has carved your own next to mine,

I do not care about the furniture, the bed,

But leaving this, is like leaving you behind,

Since you were taken,

I sleep in your engraving.

It’s my deep reminder of you,

It’s kept me going, not fading

I feel you,

I feel peace,

In your body’s imprint in the mattress,

Parting with this is pure distress.

It’s all I have left of you in the house,

A tangible memory of times gone by

It’s here I am close to you.

Your imprint, not just that, but your own body’s sign.

I have to trust,

I have my faith,

But at the moment, it’s true, I do feel somewhat lost.

Our new path Alex, Monty, Lola, Mitzi, Esmie

And me,

I wonder what it beholds?

I wonder what will unfold.

France is over,

Life as we lived it gone,

But He, who is love forever,

A very present help in times of need,

Really, I know it’s Him who leads.

I will trust and I will follow,

And give to Him my present sorrow.

Dear Alex, a quick look at what's happening at the moment....

Sunday the 2nd October, 2 days before the accident...

January 11^th 2012

Dear Alex,

Today was bright, blue skies and mild. In fact it started off very well today, I am beginning to recognise my own patterns of feelings. When I am with the kids, they make me happy, I love their presence, and I am happy with them, especially now as they come in and see you, I am more reassured that they are handling this situation extraordinarily well. They are amazing with you, and you are, it is obvious, just their dad, no matter how you are, what you can do, they just see you as their dad. It gives me strength too to see how much you enjoy their presence, their company, and being as a family, even under these extreme circumstances. Whenever I am with you, I am happy too, I love just being with you. I miss you so much, that the time I have with you is precious, and I relish it.

However, when left alone, the evenings in particular, all alone, packing up the house, I feel such sadness and sorrow. The realisation of all the practicalities of a move, finding a school for the kids, a place to live, the move anyway, but especially under the circumstances, is a lot to carry alone. There are people in England helping me find a house, but I want to chose the school the kids will go to. I have been afraid lately, starting again, the knowledge that you will be an inpatient for a year to eighteen months, I know I am capable, and you are still here, but making new friends, I feel I have not the energy for this. Starting again, leaving our dream. Leaving and having to say goodbye to what we have been trying to do for our family for 5 years now is the end of an era. But for you, we have to go back. You will do so much better, you respond only really to me, your mum and dad and friends, to English especially. It’s obvious the French is tiring for you, you do not understand it all, and must feel helpless not even being able to communicate or even see to be able to create a tangible image of your surroundings and environment.

Moving back to England for us as a family is imminent, we wait for your epilepsy drugs to stabilise you, then they tell me you will be fit to travel.  So the evenings for me are spent writing you your letter, then placing myself in the garage to pack boxes. The finality of it all has hit me recently. This is it…

The kids are actually looking forward to going back to ‘English’ as Esmie refers to it! And it is such a wait off my shoulders that they have accepted this. I put it to them as a new adventure, to live around our friends and family for a while (by the time they have adapted, they will not mind staying). As we have never lived around family, the kids are excited about this. A huge weight lifted, I imagined they’d be devastated, but that’s my emotion, not theirs'...

People have spoken to me about leaving our cat Bumble, for practical reasons. We have Oliver the dog and Angelica who is old and hides in cupboards, but Bumble, Monty found a scrawny little abandoned kitten two Summers ago. He’s adventurous and very cuddly. I cannot do this, not to Bumble, or the kids, or me. We are already leaving enough behind without leaving our cat to ‘some nice home’. So as I started to say about today being a good day, I managed to duct tape him into a basket, and whisked him down to the vets, I have spent a week trying to do this. He now has his passport, microchip and rabies injection. He’s all ready, and as he was abandoned once, I am not abandoning him again, he’ll adapt, he’s better with his family that adopted him from a tiny  starving kitten of six weeks and has raised him and loved him since, than not understanding why he has been abandoned again, but still recognising his environment. My decision is made, and I am bringing him back.

Today I tell you the stories of tracking him down and getting him ready, and you smile at the accounts. You blink your eyes to tell me you are happy he’s coming back, and to tell me, ‘yes, you have done extremely well my amazing woman’ when I blow into your eyes to make you blink in agreement. A game I like to play that probably p*sses you off, but you seem to enjoy, it makes you laugh not cry, so I carry it on each time, I even made you blink for a donkey and a fifth kid the other day!

Anyway, after the events of yesterday which were very distressing, you had a major epileptic fit, today the tranquilising drugs have taken affect, and you are very relaxed, not trembling and contracting as you were yesterday. I hope they manage for your sake to get the right dose, you will be so much more comfortable, and able to advance…

I must go and continue packing, I am not sure when exactly we are moving, so I need to be ready.

I love you, you are an inspiration my baby, I cannot begin to tell you how in love with you I am, or how much I miss you, depths I have never been to before, my admiration for you, you are my hero, as you always have been.

I wish you were here my sweetheart…the time passes so slowly without you, I am so lonely without you by my side…

Me xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Dear Alex, Reunited, what a MAGNANIMOUS day!!

The board Monty is holding is Janvier, 1, Dimanche, Winter, 2012, a date to  remember always...

January 1^st 2012

New Year’s day…

I wake up, kids hungry, full of excitement for the day, Esmie slept through the night for the first time in a year, a miracle, I know a few people prayed for this last night, and I was very low when I spoke to mum on New year’s eve, envisioning the fact I would have to take drastic measures to accomplish and get her to sleep through the night. I was prepared to put her out the back door, in the dark cold night, bend down, and tell her, it’s your decision, either you sleep outside, or you sleep through the night and stop waking mummy up…drastic times, but a friend of mine said it had worked with her girl, and I have no other answers….Between the hours of 11pm and 3.30 am, she wakes every half hour. Anyway, I went to bed low, New Year’s eve, waiting for Esmie to wake, and she did not!

A night’s refreshing sleep makes all the difference.

The kids are beside them selves with excitement about the day, I make toast and marmite, and hot chocolate for breakfast, we listen to music and play some of the games we got for Christmas, gathered round the table, the girl’s helping me prepare a big tortilla for lunch.

After lunch we step outside, what a glorious day! There are dozens of starlings making their call in the trees in our garden, we all rush to the door and listen, it’s beautiful. We get wellied up, no need for coats it’s so mild today, and we take the dog for a walk, smiling inside and out, even though I am, on the way back, wracked with nerves, wondering how it will go, to be honest, I know it’ll be alright, I wasn’t really anxious, it was just a big day…

We are finally bundled in the car, as I take the road along the river, the clouds, shaped like minoes darting through the blue sky, the sun blazing, birds everywhere, the scene couldn’t have been more prophetic.

We park up, finally at the clinic, and the kids are desperate to get in and see you.

So how did it go babe? Here’s the account, in case you forget.

You seem tired, but as you hear their little voices (well loud voices) you smile. I tell them you have presents hidden, and after Monty and Lola give you a kiss, Mitzi is hesitant, and Esmie too, who stays in my arms, they are over the moon, a plastic hologram cup each, princess ones for the girls, spider man for Monty, other bits and pieces and lots of chocolates, you point to the cupboard where they are hidden (luckily it's on the side you can us!). I give you big kisses on the lips, and Monty decides he wants to tell you his made up jokes,

‘What is white with bees in it?’

‘A yoghurt with a bees nest in it!’

You laugh at this, and he carries on,

‘What’s clear and full of bees?’

‘Water with a bees nest in it!’

I think they are all along the same theme, but bless him, he is so completely at ease, and chats away normally to you, not in the least bit phased, it’s incredible to watch Monty at 8-years-old accept you as you are, behave normally around you, not in the slightest bit troubled. Lola tells you she has ‘4 teeth who wibble’. Mitzi holds back, but gives you the present they bought you- a cuddly lion! We named it Aslan…Esmie wanders round looking at things, and Lola asks lots of questions, ‘why is daddy’s head on the side? Why are his eyes closed?' I answer each question, and she justs accepts it, and knows all this will come with time. She is so determined in her belief that you will be better one day, and understands it takes time. I have brought toys, they play around you, drink coke! (normally forbidden, but I tell them you let them), they all chorus, ‘oh thanks dad!’

You spend the time smiling, revelling in the energy and chatter the kids bring.

I managed to hold it together, when I first walk in, and I say, ‘hiya baby, look who I’ve brought in to see you’ my voice breaks, and tears fill my eyes, but the kids are amazing, so full of energy and life and acceptance, as always, and there are no issues what so ever.

At one point Mitzi cries, I think she found it quite overwhelming, but I cuddle her for a while, and she soon gets down and plays with the others as normal. Monty keeps coming up to you to tell you things, and is very tactile. At one point we decide to see who is stronger, you or Monty, and you have an arm wrestle, in the end, your hands are both sweaty and hot and they slip, so Monty calls it a draw and reckons he’s almost as strong as you now, so I tell you there’s some motivation babes, getting stronger than your 8-year-old son again!

The whole time you have your eyes shut with tiredness, but a smile that you guard.

At one point, as you seem to tremble a lot (due to the brain damage) on your right hand side, Monty comes over, I explain what I do to help calm you, I take your hand and tell you to gently relax, then stroke the top of your arm. He strokes it, and your trembling stops, Lola watches on. You try and show them how well your legs move, although the right one is tired and doesn’t move today, the left leg you bend at the knee and flatten again, you do this repeatedly, I then say that Lola needs to see a new trick, she’s seen that one, and she says ‘yeah, go on daddy’ and you lift your leg right up in the air, she collapses in laughter, and you laugh too. I hope each week you’ll have a new move to demonstrate!

With time, they will all be as Monty was today, Lola is nearly there, she spent a lot of time watching you, taking it all in. When we have to go, Monty comes over to kiss you, Lola too, Mitzi doesn’t want to, so I do not force the issue, it’ll come, and Esmie cuddles her head on you face, and you kiss her forehead. I get them to blow you kisses, you catch them with your right hand and place them on your face…they loved that.

It was an amazing day, the energy you were surrounded by, your reaction, your constant smile, holding ‘Aslan’ which Monty says can be your pet whist you're in here. It was incredible for me too, the fact that as a family now, we can have these moments, they are all taking part in your healing process, their natural acceptance, the fact they were not at all disturbed, this was just you, you are still their daddy, it doesn’t matter how you are, what you can or can’t do, you are their daddy, still you, and nothing will ever sever that. I am not the mummy rushing out to see their dad, without them, them missing you and not being able to get to you. we are all a part of it now. It is a big thing for me.

The bonds we form through love, neither fire can turn to cinders, nor thunder and lightening destroy, they stand, regardless, ever solid, ever vast.

Love is an amazing thing, look at what it has so far achieved for us Alex, and look how despite your ‘incapacitated’ state, the kids just see their dad, simply that.

I have been blown away by today. Bursting with pride, for you, the kids, and full of hope for our future as a family. What a way to start the new year…

I love you my angel, I know you’ll sleep well tonight!

See you in the morning, rest peacefully and with the memories of today…

Me xxxxxx