First Aid Waves

On September 9, 2015 By rebelwithkindnessIn Uncategorised, UncategorizedLeave a comment

The last two days have knocked the crap out of me. What I thought was just going to be a normal run of the mill First Aid course has actually be a major trigger for my grief.

Sitting there in the conference room when asked if anyone has ever used CPR my heart started to pound within my chest.

My mind left the conference room right then, I was there back in the moment, the moment I have tried so often to forget.

I breathe deep, drink a little water and try to bring myself back to the here and now.

Seizures “anyone saw a child seizure”, what ??

Yes too many.

Choking, Yes

Severe vomiting, Yes

Sometimes I don’t realise how much in life I have seen. Raising a disabled child opens you up to a world of medical practices, symptoms, treatments that many others will never face.

Losing a child tragically, well let’s not go there.

Too much

and it just blooming hurts.

I’ve had to bury my head the last couple of days.

Allowing the waves of grief to flow over me.

Trying to change the horrid memories for good ones.

Burying them I guess.

Yet they won’t ever leave me.

But life has to go on,

I have to get my first aid certificate and will need to get it again in three years.

This is a requirement of the job I love.

So I ride the waves,

Holding on tight to the good memories and learning to swim harder through the bad.

Forgotten photograph

On January 30, 2015 By rebelwithkindnessIn Uncategorised, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Last night I fell apart.

I truly just sobbed and sobbed.

I cried until I couldn’t breathe.

I was angry

I was broken.

I found myself screaming at God

The crazy thing is that nothing had happened.

Well nothing major.

I just came across a forgotten photograph of Livvy.

One that I hadn’t seen in such a long time.

You see I had uploaded it to a photo printing site that I don’t use that often, but a discount email spurred me into a visit.

As I scrolled through photos of my foster son there right at the beginning was a few that I must have uploaded over 7 years ago.

There was her sweet beautiful face.

Just looking out at me.

For just one precious moment she felt so close.

Then reality struck and I realised she was completely out of reach.

I catch my breathe as I write that. The physical pain of her missing tightens like a noose on my heart.

Grief is a funny old journey. No thats not the truth there is nothing funny about it.

It destroys you, it slowly epps away the person you were before the loss and leaves you with a shadow of what was once.

Your heart is never the same.

I needed to cry last night.

I needed to allow myself the freedom to grieve.

To drop the facade and allow myself to feel.

Being brave is hard.

Being strong is exhausting.

You cannot live in the world of pretence forever.

I’m not ok.

I never will be.

My heart is broken.

My soul aches for my daughter.

My arms are empty.

A part of me is forever missing.

My brave daughter

On June 12, 2013 By rebelwithkindnessIn Uncategorised, Uncategorized1 Comment

It may be heading towards five years since we lost Livvy but sometimes it only feels like yesterday.

Only this week my eldest was undertaking a first aid course as part of her training for her Saturday job.

Anyway she was doing fine enjoying learning new knowledge when they came to the part about resuscitation.

CRASH

She was back to the fateful morning when she woke to the sounds of tears and the presence of paramedics trying their hardest to save her sister.

Her heart just broke and the tears began to fall.

She couldn’t continue and had to leave.

Past had become present.

Present had become painful.

Moving forward isn’t easy, we laugh, we plan and we live life.

But we all have scars.

Scars of memories that will never leave us, they are just part of our make up.

I’m grateful the good memories outweigh the bad but each of them form a piece of our identity.

Who we are!!

I’m so proud of my amazing daughter, she returned to the course the next day and completed her training.

One brave young woman I’m blessed to call my daughter.

One compassionate young lady Livvy is proud to call her sister.

My Livvy time

On June 5, 2013 By rebelwithkindnessIn Uncategorised, Uncategorized2 Comments

It happens out of the blue.

One moment I’m fine the next I’m curled up in a ball sobbing my heart out.

Grief is a crazy journey that causes me to feel so lost and disorientated at times.

It’s been four and half years yet at times it feels more like four and a half days.

I cry out in my dreams as I reach out to touch my beautiful girl and slowly she disappears just out of my grasp.

I feel angry, the emptiness that can only be filled by her is raging in my soul.

I’m shouting why to the heavens.

Why my daughter?

Why my livvy ?

People tell me I need to move forward.

How is that possible when a part of you is in the past?

It’s a strange concept

I understand life goes on but it feels as if a part of me will be left in 2008 forever.

My pillow is wet from tears,

The raw aching sobs smothered by the feathers.

It hurts

That’s all I have at times.

It hurts

I have to allow the pain to wash over me.

Allow myself to grieve.

If I didn’t I would explode

Like a ballon being overfilled with gas.

You have to loose it otherwise it will go pop.

I know I have eternity but right now, right at this moment I am homesick.

I close my eyes and allow myself to see her.

Allow myself the memories.

I watch her YouTube video on silent, not wanting to wake anyone.

Not wanting to explain or share.

This my time

This is me time

My Livvy time.

One of those moments

On March 4, 2013 By rebelwithkindnessIn Uncategorised, Uncategorized1 Comment

You know those moments when you pass on words of wisdom to your children only to find out later that they got it so very wrong.

Well a couple of weeks ago my youngest came home from school in tears an annoying boy had taken to looking at her waiting for her to look at him just to say “what you looking at”.

Now of course first we tried the just ignore him tactics and the don’t look his way ones too, but nothing was working and it was making her life miserable.

It was such as shame as senior school is hard enough without annoying boys. I mean she has all of her marriage to put up with that.

So my husband had enough of this boy and simply told her the next time he asked her “what you looking at” she should answer with the words and the old favourite “I don’t know they don’t label crap”.

Well anyway cue us sitting up the dinner table last night when Brodie told us that she had shut the boy up with what dad had told her to say. Of course we were pleased but then she continued with the words “he looked a little confused”.

What could be confusing about the statement?

So we asked Brodie what she had actually said.

She explained that when the boy said his usual “what you looking at” she had replied with.

” I don’t know, i don’t look at things that aren’t labelled” and then she added “you need to get yourself labelled “

Of course once we had picked up ourselves off the floor in hysterics we kindly explained where she had gone wrong.

Anyway the boy left her alone, confused maybe or frightened whichever one it worked.

Memories in the making.

Sixteen Years

On November 2, 2012 By rebelwithkindnessIn Uncategorised, Uncategorized1 Comment

Today I celebrate 16 years of marriage.

16 years ago I married a gorgeous man I get to call mine.

Its been a turbulent 16 years, we have experienced incredible highs alongside some devastating lows.

Love has been shared with pain

Laughter lost to tears.

Life has tested us in so many ways, but together we have passed with distinction.

When we first met so many people said we wouldn’t last,

We are so different,

Yet at our core we are so very alike.

We love with all our hearts

Our children are our world

and loyalty has no ends.

I know without a doubt how blessed I am to have Alan as my husband.

God gave me a great gift in him.

I don’t know what the future holds

But I do know that Alan and I will face it together.

Today, tomorrow, forever

Alan I love you.xx

I don’t care what people say.

On August 20, 2011 By rebelwithkindnessIn Uncategorised, Uncategorized3 Comments

I don’t care what people say it doesn’t get easier. Time doesn’t heal. The pain doesn’t lessen. The only thing that changes is the way you cope with the anguish.

You train your mind to move elsewhere have an arsenal of thoughts, ideas to distract you from the deep burning ache within your soul. The tear across your heart that hurts so bad.

Just tonight I found myself chancing across a photo
I hadn’t seen for a while and my heart broke again into a million pieces.

Its strange that only earlier today i was talking about the need to keep my mind occupied that any down time leaves space for the memories to come flooding in. The fact is I don’t need space, my daughter is in every thought,every breath I take.

In a few hours I will take flowers to her grave. I will stand there feeling empty and broken. The flowers are all that I can do, keeping her resting place pretty. I don’t believe she is there anymore yet I need it to be pretty.

Then on Sunday I will pack for my holiday still feeling the emptiness of her missing. Going through the motions knowing that nothing will ever be complete again. Nothing is how it truly should be.

I don’t live it the past, as I’ve said before that wouldn’t be fair on my other girls. What I will say is I live in the now, in the future aware a piece of me is missing.

Somedays I pretend. I convince myself she is at school. It’s easier when the girls aren’t with me but when we are all together the pretence doesn’t hold.

I sound depressing don’t I. I really don’t mean to. I’m not this way. It’s just those moments when my resolve crumbles and I break. I’m angry at the world and life is pretty dim. I let the tears fall and the grief loose out of soul. Then ten maybe twenty minutes later before the girls see my tears I pull myself together and carry on. What choice do I have really.

I’ve said before I still find it hard to believe that your heart can break but your body carries on. At times against your will.

So this post has been written in one of those broken ten minutes. The tears are falling and my heart is aching. Soon it will be time for me to pull myself together but as the girls are safely tucked away in bed. I may just let myself be for a while. Drop the act, scream at God and just generally grieve for my beautiful daughter Livvy who left to soon.

For those who say time heals that’s the biggest lie. Time just means more time without the one you love.