Dear Alex, realisation....

Jedi warrior, It's all about the force......!

28^th March 2012

Dear Alex,

Tears are a predominant with my visits to you at the moment. They have been gradually reducing the tranquilising medications. And I feel your adjusting to this is the cause.

Witnessing your vulnerability, your dependency on nurses/people you don’t know, seemingly now, a great deal of comprehension from your part and insight into where you are at has two effects on me. Firstly, I am obviously distraught. Distraught for you, what your situation, and the realisation of it means, the depth of distress and anxiety you show, your inability to be able to express this. Secondly, it’s a very good thing. Hear me out- you indicating this pain, anguish, as devastating as it is, as much as I want, desperately wish, yearn to demolish the pain you are in, it means you understand. And baby, this means you are fighting. I know you. I know that if 6 months ago someone had told you about this, you would have told them you’d see it through, fight eternally, to ‘get back’ to be you again…which, in turn, means you have the best chance.

The Alex I know, is the fighter, the physically, mentally strong, devoted husband and father, who would do anything to fight to be that always…and I KNOW you one day WILL be back my angel.

Your right arm reaches out, stretches out now, to hold me close. The other night when I am in with you, I lie next to you, chatting softly, we laugh and enjoy just being. Just being, and this being the ultimate joy, the ultimate pleasure, the ultimate love, something we have never experienced, maybe unless something like this occurs in life, this is never fully comprehended, embraced, appreciated. Just lying there, my arm over you, my legs over yours, my head on your chest looking up at you. You reach up your right arm, and, stretching your hand out, search and find my head, you feel my face, stroke my hair and hold my head, cupping it in your hand. ‘Oh, baby, you’ve just melted my heart’ I say, finding the overwhelming feeling, the intensity of love and gratitude to have your arm over me this way, holding me close, this simple gesture of love, I find it hard to breathe. You start to cry, and I wipe your tears, and wipe my own. You know I’d be here every second of everyday if I could…

Life is not like that, we cannot predict our beginning or our end, our hard or good times. Life is just there. All we can do is choose what we do with the time that is given to us. ‘Given', and the word ‘given’ is the key word. We all need to remember this. Not just some of the time, but ALL of the time, practising daily, hourly, every second the realisation and appreciation for all we do have, however small we believe that to be. You’ve taught me that, honey.

All the seemingly minute things you can do today, I never thought you would, we were told you never would, so with everyday, every week, every month, look what you will be able to achieve. It’s not going to be tomorrow, next week even, in the next few months, but ONE day, I believe, fighting armed with medicine, love and prayer to the Most High, these three elements, combined, will bring you back…

How I miss you, long for you, crave you, Alex.

Being held by your right arm, the feelings I am filled with by the expression of your love, in the only way you can, is incomparable to almost any other feeling I have ever experienced…

I love you, forever…

Me xxxxxxxxxxxx

Dear Alex, Five Things I have Learned this Week...

My very amazing friend/support/P.A...the list goes on and on! superamazingmum visited with her gang the other day for a sleep over (let's wait a while till we do that one again hey Soph?). Apart from much confusion over many shared kids' names, it was general 'kid's rule, mums are rubbish and powerless!' bedlam, sheer mayhem, but we made it to bed time, the final ones being driven in a car to put them to sleep around 10 o'clock..desperate times and all that, and we needed some 'Kid free' time.

So kids off, we get nattering, and natter we can both do and very well, she suggested to me that I took up my '10 Things I have Learned From this Week' blog again. To help me see the positive things, refer back week-by-week to all I am learning throughout this experience. And I thought it was a brill idea (you're so clever Soph!).

However I am making a few modifications- I am going for 5 things! As I want to try and put clear and positive things up where I can.

So here it restarts...

March 20th 2012

1. To be more than grateful for every tiny thing in life. Whether it be a little email just to let you know someone's thinking of you, or a gesture of kindness, or the beautiful daffodils blooming everywhere reminding us of Spring and new life...

2. To always say 'thank you'- how nice is it when someone smiles and says 'thank you'!

3. Do not get caught up so intensely in your own life that you forget to look out for others. Whether your life is going well or badly, always try to 'branch out' just that tiny bit.

4. Ghandi was quoted saying 'your Christ, I like, your Christians, I do not like, they do not resemble your Christ'. To me, whether you believe Jesus existed or not, that's irrelevant, because who he represented, the things he did, who he was, HOW he was, is certainly someone to emanate, his teachings something to aspire to...

5. It is hard, sometimes nigh on impossible to hope, brushing away what you are told and reaching again for the hope, but ESSENTIAL and I will never ever give this up...

Dear Alex, You know what, I think it’s been the funniest week ever….

You know what, I think it’s been the funniest week ever….

March 18^th 2012

Dear Alex,

Last week, was a week to write off, bury and never turn it over again!

You see, as soon as you had your accident, it was all down to me, to do it all, and my fiercely protective mothering instincts flooded me and I had to step up. My priority keeping the kids as stable and happy as possible, and giving you all the time and energy that entails. Although life does not stop, there’s moves back to England, realising half our clothes, toys have not returned, and the kids have to make do well, Mitzi and Esmie, sleeping on a mattress on the floor, top and tailing for weeks until I finally wangle some bunk beds.

Suddenly being dependent on other’s kindness to clothe us, feed us and provide. And the humility that involves, when all I want to do really, is stand on my own two feet and provide for our kids, nurture them and you. But I am dependent, and although I hate this and it frustrates me, I can do nothing but accept it.

This week, on my birthday I had a meeting with a housing officer who informs me the impossibility of my situation and then I am sent on my merry way to deal with it.

Then the Wednesday night I start having excruciating cramps in my stomach, it being abnormal, just before I collapse, I manage to get the Dr’s number tapped into the phone, and Monty rings him. Then he rings Grandma and Grandpa, who track down my sister and her husband John, who come flying to the rescue, and stay with me till extremely late in hospital, and who get my parents over. By this time I had been screaming in agony for and hour, and unable to move. Lola strokes my hair and holds my hand telling me I’ll be OK. Monty decides to take Mitzi and Esmie upstairs to read them a story and calm them down, then gets them to bed. Various family members turn up, and the Dr quickly realises he is not sure what is going on and hits me with pethidine, and calls the ambulance. I am whisked away to hospital. Hours later, the agony calms, it was like labour pains, I can assure you. They find not a lot, and diagnose kidney stones. I manage to get home late evening the next day. To Monty who was had quite literally made himself sick with worry, he was in a terrible state, hot, exhausted and told me how terrified he had been, that I would be ‘like dad’. I had been lying in hospital worrying about this, as for the kids, a parent going to hospital has connotations, severe ones, and Monty had thought the worst. Thankfully, I was back, I was fine, and explained to him even though we get poorly sometimes, hospitals are there to make us better and send us home again, and it was not the same as daddy. He cried himself to sleep, me stroking his head and shhhhhing him, telling him I am always here, so’s dad, but daddy needs a long time to get better.

I was blown away by the calm strength our kids showed, looking after me and ringing all the right people and not panicking and freaking out. The maturity they showed was phenomenal, and we are very lucky baby to have them, and yet again, a moment to be insanely proud of them all.

Then, still unwell, I go to pick up the kids from school, realising the teachers had thought when the kids had said ‘mummy is in hospital’ that I was visiting you! And Lola had been told off for not handing in her homework. Bless her little sensitive heart, things couldn’t be more all over the place at the moment!

I then pick Esmie up and I see the beautiful pots of flowers they have spent all day decorating and making pretty flowers to go inside, presents for mother's day, which will be different this year. The nursery worker picks up the pots, going, nope, not that one, nope, nope, nope not that one either, then she looks at me and goes ‘oh yes, I’ve just remembered, I didn’t get round to doing one with Esmie, sorry about that…’ and so we leave empty handed. I had to laugh, bit of hysteria I am sure kicks in, but how the hell can that have happened too?????!!!! Absolutely hilarious. As if??!!

Oh, and Mel, your cousin who comes in once a week to physio you and is just generally just amazing with all that is going on, a fantastic support for me, and says in her ‘delicate’ way- she’ll laugh at that, she knows her manner! (I love you Mellie!!) and to put it bluntly, minutes after she tells me the scare on Wednesday night shocked the family and a lot of people had been thinking, and I basically found myself writing my will just in case….Well, it’s probably obligatory all things considered, and very practical. But this last week has been a, well, a comedy of errors resulting in me being in better spirits than ever as ultimately who would actually believe all this??? I do feel like I am making it up, if only I were. But that was my birthday week. Welcome to 34-year-hood me…!

Anyway, on the bright side, oooo and there always is (?!) the kids and I were able to take you out for your first taste of fresh air in 5 and a half months, we wheeled you to the coffee shop opposite in the hospital which of course was shut. But we found machines, which would have been fab, but the drink dude who pour them out before you can take it was obviously p*ssed and just couldn’t be bothered to get the drink in the cup, scalding me twice, with a sip of hot chocolate left in each cup, so we combined it and had a sip each….

So, yes, baby, our life is pretty hilarious at the moment, I would write a black comedy about it if I could. Because really, laughter is the best medicine, it stops you rocking in corners, and you do just have to laugh.

Oh, and then, as we bring Oliver in the car with us to see you, we got Oliver out to see you for the first time in 5 and a half months, and I forewarn the kids I will cry at the emotional reconciliation. We get him out, and leaps out, missing you and sniffs off all over the place. You and I laughed out loud. Stupid dog! He actually bloody missed you! Finally we get him back over, and Oliver (who for years now I have had to lift into the car, as he doesn’t ‘do’ jumping) jumps up, to try and get on your lap, licking you, wagging his tail like it’ll fall off, whimpering, and it was the reconciliation I had expected…magical. He came through in the end.

So baby, what can I say? We have a very funny, although intensely depressing life going on at the moment!

Let’s keep it together, press on, despite…we’ll get there, won’t we???

Babes, I love you, and regardless of everything happening, I do love our life, because I still have you, and the kids, and that’s all I ultimately want out of our life.

Me xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Dear Alex, ‘Allée, courage’

March 13th 2012

My beautiful blue-eyed man.....

Dear Alex,

I came into see you tonight, and you were asleep. I cannot stir you, there’s no birthday smile for me, so I give up, I lie down next to you, tucking my head under your chin, placing your right arm around me, and my leg over yours…As I watch your face, you cannot tell anything has changed, you look peaceful, normal, real. It makes me expect you to yawn, wake up, smile at me and say ‘right, what are we up to for the day, angel?’ pinching my bum cheekily and me demanding a cup of tea before I do anything, you saying, ‘of course sweetheart!’…

If I could have one birthday wish, it would be to have one day with you, a normal day with you, playing with the kids, a walk, a cup of tea made by you, or one of your special coffees. Even you, just there to back me up as we trailed around together battling the bullshit of the hurdles I alone try to surmount at the moment. Just you, Alex, you and me with the kids. It’s all I would wish for.

But no one can wave a magic wand, no one can just zap it away. I cave in tonight and I cry into your T-shirt as you sleep.

I have to move very soon, I have been told you will not be in the O. C. E  for as long as I expected. The implications being that I have to look for a rental property, I am only able to have 3 bedrooms, and it has to be specially adapted for you. Now this does not even exist, and I have a time limit too. The Housing Officer tells me a) to treat it as a full time job trying to find that property (?!) and b) that I have to be open to moving farther afield, thus uprooting the kids again, changing schools and so on. I’ve just got them settled too…

This news on my birthday, plus sleepless nights with Mitzi’s oozing ears, well, and the ‘you circumstance’ and just the whole picture at the moment just literally overwhelms me, and I just need you so much. I know if you were there, you would be right there next to me, pushing me, telling me how amazing* you thought I was (*according to you only! As you used to everyday we were together) telling me I COULD do it.

This whole situation has made me soul search deeper and further and more intensely, than ever before. I wake up this morning at 5.30 with Esmie and Mitzi, and realise:

- There are people willing to give up weekends to come and visit us, evenings to babysit, half days to work with you; the kindness and selfless actions of others humbles me. they're kind enough to send messages, spend time thinking about us, praying or, like today, kind gestures- I received gifts from 'strangers'  (fellow blogging mummies, blown away), people organising things for the kids to give me, a card 'from' Alex. Taking stock of this, I, as a mother, am duty bound to our kids, who deserve to have a role model they can be proud of and a role model who is humble and grateful. Not someone to aspire to who doesn’t understand these values or practice them.

- ‘Allée , courage’ (be brave)

My French friends tell me this frequently. And this is it, having courage, not just courage to face up to this situation, and the battles that definitely do sometimes get the better of me, when I see no way out, no solutions, a hopeless and insurmountable task. It’s also having courage to rise out of this, look (dig deep) and realise when you think you’ve got nothing, you’re at rock bottom, you ALWAYS have something to be grateful for, to give thanks for. When everything’s at it’s worst, the courage to look for the good is not easy, but essential.

And I think of you and your fight you have ahead of you, and realise my fight too, and this is a fight, a battle, and in battle you have to be strong, have courage, surpass yourself to do your best and in doing so, surmount the hurdles with grace and humility by practicing gratitude…

Come on babes, you and me together- you have the hardest fight of your life where you are, and I have not the equivalent, but the hardest fight I have ever had to fight in my life too. Our love will surely get us through all this…because my God, one thing I do know is I am so in love with you.

Armour on, ‘allee courage’ and looking up baby, that’s me coming in to see you tomorrow…

Me xxxxxxxxxxxx

Dear Alex....check you out!

One day baby....this is my wish...xxx I love you xxx

Dear Alex, where we lived....

Our House in France, driving by for the last time....

Where we lived....

March 5^th 2012

Dear Alex,

Where we lived, what we were doing, our life we’d spent years establishing for our family, the sea, the mountains, togetherness, normality, a companion, my soul mate, my best friend, the endless attention you gave me, being held by you, conversations, arguments, which you never ever let the sun go down on…all of this, I mourn.

last day at the bus stop in France, last day of French school....

Seeing you here and now, not knowing what to expect, when how or if ever. Doing this life now that was chosen for us, all alone, without you by my side. Seeing the grief at times in the kids’ eyes, knowing how much they just need, especially at their tender ages, their daddy with them. Your input, your presence, doing nothing or everything or anything with them.

Juggling the house, the moves, the new life,  all that entails, the kids’ illnesses, the sleepless nights, the lonely evenings, my crevice of loss without you. Just doing everyday, this has all been dragging me down. We had to quit our dream, and I am, not through choice, having to form a new life, new routine, and part of me, a big part resents it. Tired, and desperate for the life we lived before. I just have to keep on going.

On the plane, leaving France.....

And I am. And I thought this the other day, despite all this, I am carrying on, I am working out a new life here, and this IS our lot. So I have to deal with it. I spent a long time pondering on this the other day, and I realised a few things. I need to start changing my outlook. As hard as it is. And I have put some steps in place. Before I go to sleep, I lie in bed praying, cuddling your shirt, my wedding finger through your ring I carry on a chain around my neck, thanking God for the good things, what I, what WE do have. No matter how insignificant. Because that is what it is about. We have the amazing kids, we have our love, you are still here, and there must always be hope. I thank God for our food, the school, that I can go in and see you, for a house where the kids are happy, although we need to be out of here very soon, it was only temporary, but thank God we had somewhere temporary.

We may not have what we had before, but we have what we have, and I am trying to make my outlook more positive, rather than seeing everything being negative in relation to all that is going on (the very easy route) I am trying very, very hard to retrain my thinking, be appreciative for all we do have.

First day of school in England.....

I am digging deep; I even thanked God for the bird songs this morning! Rather than feeling gutted we were not witnessing the wildlife that flocked around near the mountains that we saw out of our garden every day. It’s hard, baby, it really is, but there is always worse, always people worse off, and I am determined to appreciate the life we have, accept it, and see the positives.

Lola at the camera, little old me....

After all, we are here now, we cannot change that, and yes, we do have to wait years for your recuperation, and all I can do is keep my head up, not looking down, and hope you will be mine, again one day, the kids’ daddy, again, one day. 

You slept the whole visit today, so I feel cheated! You don’t even know I went in with the kids, but still, there are going to be visits like this, and more positive ones. The road is as it is, and I cannot buck it, I have to go down it. So if I have to go down it, I am going to go down it with a positive head, and try, keep trying to not look back, but to move forward.

I know the key is to be grateful for what we do have; it takes the emphasis off that which we do not have. Therefore, I hope, the total suspension of sadness I find myself in at the moment, will not feel quite so sad.

Us........

This is my vow to you, as I know you would be telling me this were you here, or understood, or could talk to me. I am doing this for you, and for our future…

I just wish I could do it with your arms wrapped around me….

I love you my angel….

Me xxxxxxxxxxxx