Dear Alex, your anchor.

28th June 2013

Dear Alex, 

Cat sits in the tree, trunk blue painted by a child of ours, a cat sits sleeping next to me. Dog snores and ears twitch, a child with tummy ache descends and it was lights out a long while ago...

My head spins with the sound of your inconsolable tears and my sides still feel your arm clutched around me like your anchor when I arrived today and did not let go...

That was yesterday, and when I left you did nothing but cry, until the sleeping pill you have took effect and you slept for the night...

The kids and I spent several hours up at their school fair, trying out everything, whacking things, hooking things, eating sweets...they ran around with their friends, drank fizzy drinks and were like any other child. No one would know, if you weren't aware of our circumstances, that they then had to get in the car to make the hour's drive to the Care home to visit their dad in the situation you're in. And I swell with pride at how adapted and accepting they are. How happy and what a delight they are and they will never know how their smiles carry me...

Sun shines and the lake full of Lilly pads and wildlife at the Home is our space today. Kids roll down the hill and we play as you sleep for the first hour whilst we are there. When you awake, you smile and kiss the kids, asking 'is it today?' 'Today what babes?' 'Today that I come home? What happened to everyone? Why am I here? How many kids do we have?' And I fill you in on all the questions you ask and we go outside by the lake, you, me and the kids as a family to spend time together in a Care home. 

But it is what it is, for the moment, until August, it cannot be changed, we just have to knuckle down, go with it and wait...

For our new house, by the sea, where chickens will roam the garden again, where you will garden, I have plans to get you to tend to and plant vegetables...'Dad's garden' and you will be doing something amazing for the kids and for us, growing the vegetables and collecting the chickens' eggs!

We will eat the food you grow.

That is why I am doing this. Moving us as a family unit, reunited again, back to the sea. Yo will excel and be the best you can be in the environment which will open us all again. In the environment you loved, still love, we just have to get through the next 7 weeks.

Today is a day I will bottle up in a green glass bottle. A precious, happy day. You smile, I do, the kids laugh and play, and I know, in time, we will be smiling together in our home Agape.

The name of the house is the word behind our family's love...Agape, selfless love. God has seen and honoured our love for each other, the Most High wraps his arms around us, even providing a house with the name of the word that depicts us...Selfless love. And back by the sea again...

Tonight I will rest with a smile in my soul, because today was a good day, and my bottle of happy memories, despite, sits high upon my shelf of life.

Me xxxxxxxxxxxxx