The Z word

Nobody really tells you what life after losing a loved one well before their time is like, there’s no handbook on how to act or feel, it’s almost like you’ve been dumped in the forest with no map of how to get out. It’s long, it’s sad and it’s tireing and no matter how much you “try” to lead a normal life there’s always something in the back of your mind to remind you.

In the days and weeks after losing Mike I remember thinking how am I ever going to live with this, how will I ever smile again and what path is our famlies lives about to take. Nobody tells you how incredibly difficult it is caring for a 2 year old child during the loss of a loved one, he still needed feeding, bathing and taking to nursery. Bedtimes felt like the worst thing in the world and I resented him for a long time when he’d cry not wanting to go to bed. And me wanting to scream at the top of my voice “ATLEAST THATS YOUR ONLY FUCKING PROBLEM” I’m sure I probabley did scream sometimes minus the swearing ofcorse. People move on and leave you behind, I felt so selfish like how dare people post pictures on Facebook of them happy, how fucking dare the whole world just carry on like nothing had happend, ofcorse it hadn’t for them and now I realise that.

I guess living after loss just comes naturally, you have no other option than to ride that horrendous wave, that massive curve ball that life has thrown you becomes reality, it becomes you. It’s not so much the big occasions like Christmas and birthdays, I mean Christmas is a fucking shit time for me now but it’s not the worst thing. The worst thing is seeing a limited edition popcorn KitKat chunky in the shop and thinking to yourself I will get that for Mike he’s likes weird shit like that. Then 2 seconds later remembering that Mike isn’t here anymore. It’s scrolling through purchases on Amazon and coming across the how to learn Japanese books i bought him for Christmas last year knowing full well he probably never got to use them. It’s things like when Rex breaks a toy that Mike bought him it’s gut wrenching because I know he’s never going to buy Rex toys again. Its catching a glimpse of someone in the street who looks exactly like him and trying not to burst into tears in a street full of people, It’s being the only one who hasn’t got a birthday or Christmas card with his handwriting in and regretting every time I dumped his card In the bin so desperately wishing I’d kept just one of them and feeling so ashamed that I didn’t. Seeing a new show on Netflix that he’d like or hearing a funny joke that I know he’d find hilarious. So you see sometimes it’s the littlest things that can be the worst.

I fucking hate this saying with all of my body but honestly it’s so true. “It does get easier” and it does i’d be a big fat liar if I said it didn’t, I managed to laugh again, I’ve lived my life, I’ve been to festivals, gone on holiday, got drunk, had sex, had a baby, and smiled again, which at one point I never thought I’d do ever again. The really sad part of life is that it does go on once somebody has left us, it has to otherwise what’s the point of it all? What good is me laying depressed in bed going to achieve? Absolutely nothing, but it’s okay to do that to. It’s ok to be happy and it’s also okay to be sad, ofcorse it is. There are no rules on how to act. Part of me wishes there were because sometimes I feel so out of control and could do with some guidance. My guidance now comes from Mike. During my recent pregnancy almost every night I asked Mike to look after me and River and he did just that.

Life after loss is a constant thought of what ifs and would haves. Mike would have loved his baby neice, he would have found her name hilarious making some joke about it I’m sure, he would have been the coolist (Grumpiest) pyjama loving uncle to Rex and River. But what if? What if he hadn’t of left us, what if he was in a diffrent place or time that night? My head is filled with so many what if’s and why’s. Why did this horrendously painful awful thing have to happen to us? Why did it happen the way it did, gosh I could go on and on with the many questions I’ve got hidden away in my head. Questions that I will never get the answer to and the hardest part of a lot of this is accepting the fact I will never know, nobody will and honestly that it probabley the most gut wrenching painful things about this whole situation is why? I think the most taboo thing about losing someone is admitting that you can be ok again, life can be ok, it won’t ever be the same but it will be ok so if you are reading this and have lost someone close to know just know that life can be ok when you feel it ready to be. As always my door is wide open for conversations only a message away if someone is struggling with grief we are all in this together and sometimes we can forget that.

Life after loss can be confusing and complicated. It messes with your brain and makes everything all higgledy-piggledy. Life doesn’t have to end after losing our loved ones, in some strange way life can begin again, I live for Mike now and I’d be god dammed if anyone is going to take that away from me. He left me and us way to soon, he left a mother and father without a son and a sister without a brother. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I could be in this situation but someone somewhere decided it was meant to be so I and we have had no choice but to try and carry on living as best we can to honour my very loved and very missed brother

❤️Mike❤️

Z

Xxx