A Family Treasure Trove

In January 1956 my Mum & Dad went for a working holiday for a year to the U.K. Growing up us kids we would always here about their many adventures, as well as often having slide nights to see all the pictures they had taken of their trip. We always loved to hear about their travels, and to see their photos.

Mum & Dad had written many letters to the family back home in Australia, while I never saw them over the years, Dad would mention them every now and again. Once Mum passed away in 1981, we thought that my "EVIL" stepfather had got rid of them, like he had done with alot of Mum's other personal things.

Late last year I decided to have a big clean out, and I went through a particular box that I had always carried around with me to wherever I was living, without ever opening it. I had been taking this box everywhere with me since I moved out of home in 1981!! To my total amazement, I found in the box all of the letters that they had written - there was 112 of them!!!! And Mum being the writer that she was, they were all at least 3 or more pages long, some were even 12 pages long!! Mum was never short of words!!!!

I was so excited when I found them, that I had to read them all right away - It felt like Mum had walked into the room herself, sat down beside me, and was telling me the story of their trip herself. Mum always had a great way with words, especially in her writing.

It felt like I had opened up a time capsule, and was experiencing life back in 1956. I then of course made copies of them for myself and the rest of the family, and passed the original letters back to Dad. Even he was amazed to read them, because some of them he hadn't known Mum had written.

This Photo Is Of Mum In Adelaide

This Photo Is Of Mum & Dad On The Ship To England
(They Look So Young And Carefree)

This Photo Is Of Buckingham Palace
(Check Out The Cars !!!)

This Photo Is Of Their Little Black Morris Van

They Travelled In Around The U.K.

Then a couple of weeks ago out of the blue, I heard from one of My Aunty's letting me know that she had old Home Movie footage of Mum, Dad and the family from back in the 1950s, as well as alot of photos of Mum's family dating back to the 1800s !!!! I was so thrilled to hear from her, and she kindly sent me copies of everything she had.

Of course watching the old Home Movies, I had lots of laughs as well as many tears. It was so weird to actually see movie footage of Mum & Dad looking so young, happy and carefree, and I could also see alot of Mum in myself. Over the years I have often been told I look like my Mum, and now I can see why after watching the Old Home Movies. When my sweet daughter "Kimberley" watched it at first she thought it was actually me, until I let her know it was Mum. Her precious comment was "Now I can see where you get your silliness from"!

Kimberley is often "Very Serious", (Its almost as if she is the adult in the house). I soon advised her that "My Silliness" comes from "BOTH" sides of my family, and that she too has it in her "GENES" !!!! Both from me and my family as well as her Dad's side.... "Poor Kimberley"....

Mothers Day

Happy Mothers Day

Happy Mothers Day To all my wonderful friends,
Thinking of you all in my heart today,
With Lots of Love, Hugs & Kisses to you all and our precious lost babies,
I hope you all have a lovely Mothers Day.
xxxx

Another Difficult Day For Me .... And I Have Been Inspired By Melissa



Today is another difficult day for me. I know I should be doing my assessments and so on for my counselling course that I'm doing at uni, but I'm finding it very hard to focus on them this week...... I desperately need some down time, and I have the urge to reach out to others who are finding it tough at the moment too.



I recently came across a beautiful blog called "To Write Their Names In The Sand", where a wonderful lady in Western Australia writes your precious lost baby's name in the sand, this site is a beautiful memorial to her son Christen. I was so honoured when she wrote Nicholas name in the sand for me. Linked to her blog she also has a support blog called "Under The Tree", and through this site I came across Melissa a lovely, but very heartbroken mama in America, requesting for anyone around the world that lives near the ocean to be able to write her precious daughter's name in the sand.

To view her blog the address is:

http://2feetonearth1inthestars.wordpress.com/

So that's what I did yesterday afternoon, once the rain had cleared..... I was amazed how wonderful a feeling it was to be able to do this for Melissa. It made a difficult day for me alot easier.... So Thank You Melissa.

This idea has got me thinking, that there are many of us around the world who have not only lost our precious babies, we have also lost others that a very precious to us too.

Because I live so close to the beach, I have decided that if anyone would like me to write a precious lost loved one's name in the sand, I am very happy to do so.

I too, as Melissa, would also love if anyone out there living near the ocean, could please write Nicholas name in the sand, and also if you don't mind taking a photo of it and sending to my email address..... Thank You....

Below is a photo I took yesterday of the path leading onto the beach where I took the photos.

Why?

Why?....Why?.... Why?....Why?....
After 15 years the pain of losing Nicholas is still so raw and intense, what a difficult week this is for us.

Under The Tree

How long has it been since you lost your child/ren? Has your grief changed at all? Is your life becoming any easier or is it just harder as time passes?
I lost my precious son "Nicholas" 15 years ago yesterday, and the pain and grief gets harder every year. My grief has often been so overwhelming, many times I curl up in my bed at night and cry until their aren't anymore tears to shed....Only to wake up the next morning with more tears. I often feel that I would love to run away, but I can't because I still have 2 beautiful precious children to raise. The constant what if's.... What would he like be now..... Missing out on all those precious memorible milestones..... I will never know....
This time of year is always very difficult for me, and especially this week, I am so overwhelmed with grief, heartache and pain.
I long to be able to see him, touch him and give him at least one more kiss, but all I have of Nicholas are memories of those very moments in time with him, when I held in my arms, while he died.
Oh if only I could run away, just for a little while......

How do you feel when you see pregnant women when you are out and about?
For a long time after Nicholas died, I could not look at other pregnant women without feeling intense rage, or even go near other babies, especially baby boy's.
But now when I see pregnant women, I just hope and pray that their baby will be alright, and that they never have to go through this pain.

Whats your therapy in the aftermath of losing your child/ren? Do you go to counseling? Do you do artwork or some kind of exercise or do you simply just let yourself be? What helps you?
After Nicholas died, we went to a counselling group at the children's hospital, for other parents who had also lost their babies in similar circumstances to ours. We found this very difficult, because it was held a children's hospital, which intensified our grief and loss. The absolute fear we had when we went onto have our two other precious children was immense, luckily they survived and we weren't faced with losing them. For years I really struggled with the loss of Nicholas, and went totally of the rails with grief, which unfortunately after seven years, Nicholas's father and I separated. I am now a single mother looking after my two other precious children, and their father and us still spend alot of time together doing things together as a family. The four of us always spend the anniversary of Nicholas's passing together, as this is our special time to be a family, to be together as one. We all go and visit Nicholas' grave together, placing half a bunch of yellow roses there, and the other half of the bunch of roses we place on my mother's grave, we feel they are together up in heaven, and that Mum is taking care of Nicholas, until we can be together again. I have had many years of counselling which have really helped, although the very raw, gut-renching, pain never goes away, I just have to continue on taking the very best of care of my other two very precious, beautiful children.

Remembering Our Precious Nicholas

Its Been 15 Years today,
Since you went away,
It's Autumn, and the leaves are falling,
And once again we are reminded of our loss,
Of you, our Precious Son, Nicholas.
You weren't with us for very long,
Although our memories of you still live on,
Remembering you forever,
We'll always be together,
You were taken so young,
It wasn't fair,
But you are always with us,
Wherever we are.
Today and always,
We send you all our Love,
Forever in our hearts,
Until we meet again above,
Loving and remembering you always,
Mummy, Daddy, Shane and Kimberley XXXX

I Have Just Watched The Most Amazing DVD,
Tonight, after another hectic day in the city attending my studies in my counselling course, I watched a most amazing DVD, called "Losing Layla".
It is made by an Australian journalist called Vanessa Gorman, and the film is a powerful and moving video diary documentary, which takes a ride through pregnancy, a difficult birth, her baby's death and the raw scenes of grief captured in the months afterwards. "Losing Layla" was made in 2002, but the copy I watched tonight has a follow up from "Australian Story" on Vanessa's subsequent pregnancy and also a home movie made in 2005. For anyone who has had the indescribable pain of losing a baby, I would highly recommend watching this DVD, with lots of boxes of tissues. Even though I lost Nicholas almost 15 years ago, it has really helped me to try and make some sort of sense or reason as to why I lost Nicholas, and the very difficult lessons I have learned since then.
Copies of the DVD "Losing Layla" can be ordered through Vanessa's website, which is,
http://www.vanessagorman.com/
I must get back to studying for now, but hopefully I'll put up another post very soon, I just wanted to share this with you.
xxxx