Dear Alex, A year lost.

Dear Alex,

It seems you were settled today, each time I spoke to you on the phone you were happy. You even understood I would not be coming in till tomorrow due to a migraine. Usually you become angry and start shouting on the phone, and then I cannot get through to you.

Whether this is progress or just a better day? But whatever the reason behind it, at least you did have a good day.

Our puppy, Betsie, bounds around, leaping up on me and running away, tail wagging and I love to see her so happy, fully integrated in our family. To witness the love that we all have in abundance and how she has absorbed this and is a part of our family. You have loved stoking her and holding her, and I now avoid the questions about Oliver, knowing I cannot tell you again, for you to have to go through the pain of hearing he is lost from this life to us. Although I see small improvements in your memory at times, you remembered this evening an hour or so after he left, that a friend of ours had been in to see you. If I ever ask 'who's been in?' Knowing full well who has visited, you shrug, unaware apparently.

Despite the day yesterday, I still feel full of hope. Of wonder at where you have come from, to where you may be able to get to.

I read back over some of the early news updates on your Making Waves For Alex website and see how at one point you wiggled a toe, squeezed a hand, opened your eyes, and I remember those days. Not well, not vividly, although they are burned into my soul.

Today, you can stand, you can say words, sentences clearly when prompted, you can sit on your own, stand up from sitting with the aid of a Rotastand. The enormity of the progress you have made, the year you lost in the Nursing home in Amersham, and yet you still continue to progress.

I am holding on to all of this, and willing you on in every way.

I am so proud of you honey, you an inspiration to so many.

Me xxxxxxxxxx