Dear Alex, Waiting, Hoping, Praying...

This year January 2013

When we first moved back, 4th February 2012

January 17^th 2013

Dear Alex,

Snow thick and bright horizons, a black bird hops beady eye on me as I watch out the back door, appreciating the beauty early Sunday morning.

Yesterday I took the kids sledging all afternoon, there was never that kind of snow in France, we have never done this as a family before. You spent a year before I met you snowboarding and working in a bar in Chamonix! You would have loved the day we had today.

I sent an email to the Council in the early hours of Thursday morning, detailing the reasons I could not uproot the kids again, I couldn’t, do not have the strength to move and start again. I refused the House they have offered me. It’s an hour away from here, two from you! So how would I physically be able to commute 4 hours a day within a 6 hour school day?!

I want you home with all my heart, but to move, uproot the kids, make them distressed and unhappy- my priority has to be them. It’s like trying to get someone to decide which arm they would like chopped off…you know I want you home, you need to be home, I need us to be together, begin our new life together as a family, but it cannot be at the expense of the kid’s health and happiness, you, I know would understand that.

They emailed back, urging me not to refuse or they probably wouldn’t ever be able to meet our housing needs.

So I’ll stick with weekend visits, we will have to, as I wait and hope and pray.

The roads were not good today, but I made it in with 3 out of 4 kids to see you. I left Monty at a friends’ house, he is fever and headache and aches and wan. We can’t stay long, as the snow thickens and I’m not sure we’ll make it back.

Tomorrow I will be there for as long as I possibly can be! However long it takes me to get there or back…

This week, the 24^th it’s your 34^th birthday, you were 32 when this happened…

You are and always will be my very, very best friend Alex Wood, one day I am going to get you on a sledge!!

Me xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx