Dear Alex, Two years on...

Dear Alex,

White blown out waves brimming on the horizon as I look to my right out of the front door before we commence a school run in the drizzle this morning. And I breathe. All the feelings of claustrophobia have evaporated since living here. As though my soul feels settled for the first time since your accident. This is the place we will be, we will breathe and we will grow and flourish as a family. Giving each other strength from the love we share. From the depth of hurt and pain we have all been through and are still going through.

It is two years tomorrow, the 4th, since your accident. Since the last time you were you. Since the last time we were together as 'us'.

The day of your accident I have many photos from, as we all went down to the football grounds to use the field- the kids blow bubbles and chase them in the heat. It was so very hot that day. You practice your rugby kicks, you are nervous about going to the training that evening, you want to show them what you are made of...The kids 'oooo' and 'wow!' at your kicks which seem to go up in the bright blue hot sky for miles...I remember so well that day.

It seems I blinked and life suddenly changed. How my world fell in that night.

How your world, the kids' world as they knew and loved it, fell in too.

And where are we at now? We have come full circle, we are back by the sea and you are home, where you belong. Home with your family that you strove so long and so hard to nurture and love and build. Only to be taken away from any of that responsibility, which I bet you would trade anything to be able to provide for now.

It's strenuous, it is tiring, testing, it is the toughest thing we have done yet.

I do not let up on you. I have written you a schedule! It is relentless, I know I am relentless with you, I am amazed you do not get angry with me and tell me to let you rest! I have your routine written out to the most finite detail, from language used around you 'encourage Alex that you are assisting him, do not tell him you are doing something FOR him' to how your head should be positioned, to the exercises to do with you, how even drinking should be done to encourage mobility in both sides, slowly moving the arm up to your lips and back down in between sips whilst your elbow is supported to help the tremor in your right arm. I train all the carers who pass through the door for 13 hours a day, and you, I am sorry, but I never let up on you and how you should be doing things, speaking, eating...

But I need you back, you need to be back, and the small progress I have witnessed since your return, I know will become sand stones, not just grains of sand...

Two years you have been this way, two years I have done this for. Two years ago the kids lost their daddy, and I, my husband.

Just the other day Lola was in tears over an upsetting experience at school, I am consoling her and talking to her, you are wheeled in by the carer who explains I am in the kitchen with Lola who is crying. Suddenly, you burst into tears, you shout 'Why? What's wrong with my Lola?' Both Lola and I rush to you and we cuddle, you kiss her head and we all cry. 'I love you Lola' was all your brain could say, although I know you wanted to console her too. This is the first time since the accident you have shown an understanding and cared for someone else. It isn't your fault-it is the brain damage, but this is emotional progress. It was a piece of gold.

Baby, I have no idea how this is for you, sometimes you are lost in the damage of the accident and are unaware, and that is heartbreaking because my Alex is gone...and yet sometimes you are so aware and so sad, and that breaks my heart in two also.

Two years on...you are home, you are safe, you are making tiny progress, but progress is progress. I wish with everything in me I could speed it up, jump on a few chapters...but if you miss a chapter, you have missed a whole part of the plot line and that is what builds the entire book.

This is us, this is two years on, and if it carries on in this way, I am excited to see what we will have achieved two years on from now.

I love you, more than you will ever, ever, ever know...




me xxxxxxxxxxxxx