grief – Page 2 – Rebel with kindness

It’s only a van I tell myself.

But it isn’t. It’s a symbol of the life we lived, the life we lost.

The boy we have lost.

This van was our escape to the Yorkshire moors, our spaceship to the land of green fields and so, so many cows. It was Daniels and with its return it’s another piece of my beautiful boy that I have to lose.

It’s not only a van, it’s a vehicle full of so many memories that I can never repeat. A vehicle with blemish’s created from adventures. Sand from the beach, leaves from the trees and a wheelchair now devastatingly empty.

Every piece of equipment taken away feels like a vicious blow to my stomach. I’m nauseous with the pain of loss. I know we don’t need them anymore but my goodness it’s just not fair.

We should be packed up ready to go visit with Daniels favourites, to feel my heart slow in it’s dance as we pass the border into Gods own country. I should be parked up by the river with my gorgeous boy on my lap feeding the ducks. Listening to the sounds that they make, laughing at Dads reluctance to come close.

How many “ should i’s” can one heart take, we are only weeks in and there has already been too many. How in the world can I survive a lifetime of this?

Grief is not new to me but this pain is unique unlike anything I have ever known, anything I have ever felt. It’s grief for Daniel, individual for my beautiful boy. Pain twisted in the memories that we shared, agony in the cuddles we won’t get to share again.

To say I miss him feels like the understatement of my life, I literally feel like I’m walking about with my heart missing. Breathing is pained by grief, my memories are torturous.

So as the van leaves the driveway for the last time. It takes with it a dent of my bollard hitting moment. The scratches of bushes too close to the sides but most of all it takes away another part of a life that I cannot live again.

It’s not just a van, it was Daniel’s van

When I started my first blog in 2008 it was to share my life as a mom to four amazing girls. My third daughter Livvy, had a neurological disorder called Rett Syndrome. I wanted to share how life with a child with disabilities was hard but also one full of joy. Well as the irony of life is that joy quickly turned to sadness when I lost my beautiful girl to a rare virus that happened due to her disorder and my heart was broken into pieces. It was then I was ready to close down my online space and disappear into the pain of my grief but I was encouraged to share my heart, to share my pain in hope that maybe it would make others facing the same thing feel less alone. This is what I did and I have many moments that I’m so grateful that that’s what I chose to do.

Over the last 6 years the story of my life on these pages was changing, yes I was still grieving for Olivia but through the presence of a special handsome little boy my life began to fill with joy, with laughter and with hope once again. Daniel entered my life, an emergency weekend placement that became my forever son. My beautiful, beautiful boy. Yes he had his mega list of complexities but more than that he had a smile that blessed my heart and a cuddle that made me feel whole again.

Yet I didn’t get to feel whole for long because on my 46th birthday my heart was tore to pieces once again. On the 27th April 2022 Daniel went home to Jesus. The virus known as Covid 19 claimed another life., it stole my beautiful boy.

I have no idea what to do now, my purpose has gone. When Livvy died her sisters were so much younger they needed me. This time they are adults and in fact I really need them. You see I’m lost, I’m hurting and in all honesty I am broken. I have no idea or desire to do this life without Daniel. Through the Grace of God I survived losing Livvy but right now I have no idea how to survive this pain.

Daniel needed me in a way that allowed me to be free. To allow my heart to live its destiny of loving hard. Daniel taught me how to use my voice and to advocate for him and all children with disabilities. To not hide any more but to shine in loving him.

My light isn’t shining now. I am so very lost. Do I return back to these pages and share my heart once more or have the words already been said.

Will the story read too familiar?

I have no idea, I really don’t. How do you journal the lost of another child? Do I really or should I really put words to the devastation I feel? Will putting them out there for others to see blow back at me. I do not know.

All I know right now is that I’m so very lost, I don’t know my purpose anymore and my heart, well it’s forever broken.

I miss my gorgeous girlie.

I miss my beautiful boy.

This life is too hard.