Dear Alex, I Thought it Would be Different.

Dear Alex,



So it has been two years, TWO years today since I moved the family back to England. I remember the night...A blizzard in my soul.The snow fell thick and harsh in England when we landed.

I drove away from seeing you, telling you I felt this was the best, the right thing to do for us all, to move us back to England. I was lost, had never in 10 years made such an important decision on my own, without you to guide me.

Desperate at the fact I would not see you for 48 hours.

I get on board the plane, all our French friends by our side till I have to walk through the gates and leave the life we had set up together for our family. How major, how sudden our decision had been to move to France over 5 years before...We gave everything away, all our belongings, moved within 2 weeks of deciding with 3 suitcases, a cot and 3 under 3's, Mitzi a 6-week-old new born, to begin a new life, the 'Good life'. A bucolic life which enriched us as a family, we strove for and loved.

Now, through tears that pour, unrelenting in their force, just cascade down a broken mummy, a broken wife's face as we take off. I hold the kids' hands, I am trying so hard to be brave. But am terrified. Moving back to a part of England where I know no one. Just moving there for you...

It snows, it blizzards, there is no time to hang around.

As we race into the cars to get us to our new house, a house loaned to us by my parents' friend to tide us over for a month or so as we look for somewhere else.

I land.

We live in a house which is temporary, an area which is strange, in a time where I still am not, and never have adjusted to living without you.


I am back in England, to raise four kids without you, and to look after you too.

It's two years' ago today.

I feel as alone today as I did then, I just have got better at hiding it.

I still cannot quite believe it, and yet at the same time, I feel like I have never lived anything different-so much it has consumed me.

Today the blizzard abates a little, you are better than you are then after all. But, when I look back to then, I realise that by this point, I thought you would be almost back to normal. Walking with a limp, perhaps not able to see very well, but not blind. I thought you would be at home, even helping out a little with the kids, I thought it would be different.

I hoped it would be different.

I prayed it would be different.


Only losing you has been my worst nightmare, and I live it and re-live it everyday.


Me xxxxxxxxxxxxxx