I’d gone up for a sleep, my friend Kath was coming to see us so I’d told Nathan to wake me when she got here. He didn’t, he said she arrived not long after I’d gone up so he just left me to sleep and had a coffee and chat with her.
I slept for a few hours before being woken up by Londyn climbing in to bed with me, “mummy” she said in a soft voice, “is your headache better now? It’s time for dinner!” I snuggled her in for a few minutes and we chatted about her birthday tomorrow and how excited she was then we went down stairs and sat at the table. Londyn chatted away, Paisley joined in and Nathan and I just sat there watching them, we are so blessed. Our girls are truly amazing and in all of this pain they are the only things that can still make me smile, even laugh! I love them so much!
I didn’t really eat my dinner, Londyn questioned it, she was watching my every move. She’s such a little mum but it’s not her job to worry about me so I told her I couldn’t eat so soon after waking up and I’d put it in the microwave and heat it up later.
We asked Londyn how she wanted to spend her last evening as a 7 year old, she said she wanted to play board games and so that’s what we did. We played monopoly, Scrabble, don’t wake dad and gas out. It was good and it was so nice to see her excited about her birthday again. After the games we sat and watched a short movie together and then it was that dreaded time again, time for the girls to go to bed.
With them safely tucked in we headed back down stairs to make the house tidy and ready for Londyn’s big day. We didn’t do too much as we’d already decided to decorate with banners and balloons etc on her birthday whilst she was at her dad’s but we moved the furniture around and set the food table and got her presents ready for when she woke up the in the morning.
And that was that, the day was over I’d slept most of it but was still completely knackered from pretending everything was ok with the girls.
That’s the thing when you’re trying to grieve and you’re a parent, you only have a small amount of time when the kids are in bed or at school to allow yourself to grieve but even then it’s difficult because the kids might not be with you but they still need clean clothes, food to eat and a clean and tidy house! And spending so much time pretending you’re ok for their sake is exhausting to the point that if you do get an opportunity to face your grief you are normally too knackered to do so. On the flip side of that I honestly don’t think I could live with this pain if I didn’t have those two amazing little people to live for, they are my world and my every reason why I need to stay safe, sane and as well as I can be, they are my strength. I could not do this without them.
Nayely Adelpha Foundation 