Grief hurts - and life moves on..

Grief fractures your soul.. in so many ways and watching those close to you suffer is heart breaking. Its only natural to want your children to experience everything life throws at them to have adventures and to learn but when those things are of such a tragic magnitude it is hard to watch and feel so unable to lessen that load .. I have watched my daughter and her daughters these last two weeks being quietly brave.. openly heartbroken.. stubbornly stoic.. amazingly funny .. emotionally messy.. all in a sometimes loud sometimes gentle, often forgiving, hardly understanding, surprisingly lost for words, considerably stunned and shocked, and on a good day potentially irreverent way.

The girls and myself are wonderfully supported by many good friends, Dr Fred and my son who somehow knows what to say or maybe when to shut up... I dont know which... but I know he is hurting as well he feels this grief in a different way. The loss of a friend but also the pain of watching his sister and nieces suffer. I am so very proud of both my children and I know they will look after each other and support when needed. Our friends and family have rallied round giving the most amazing support , sending messages and offering practical assistance where ever they can at this most difficult time in our lives. I can only say a massive thank you especially to those who are really looking after my girls in Leeds - as a mum and a nana I really cant thank you enough for all your love and time given freely.

Jays family are also much in my thoughts and I quietly admire their ability to pull together as a family and hold my best girls in a loving supportive way. how comforting for these saddened persons to have this extended family to lean on and help keep alive the memories of a loving partner and fearless daddy.

The fierce protective mama in me is unleashed with nowhere to go .. I feel powerless to make things better .. I would just hug my girls constantly but they find that quite annoying and a bit restricting. I.m feeding them non stop ... well... apart from day two when shock and grief almost made me forget and a little eight year old hastily scribbled her granddad a letter to ask him to ask nana for some lunch!!

I'm naturally a feeder and a rescuer and feel lacking in both at the moment its a terrible feeling not being able to make your most precious loved ones feel happy and safe..
Its not all bad.. yes some days are very bad and will continue to be worse but we still find occasions to dig deep and laugh and remember silly moments which help sustain us. These days of sorrow are hard lessons learnt but we must know nothing is a given in this life so we have to take responsibility for living a full and adventurous life - those we have lost would want nothing else.

It is my intention to leave this sorrow with us as a family and I am unlikely to post further on the subject but Jays life and subsequent sudden death has made a huge impact on our lives and the hole he has left could not pass by without comment and acknowledgement. He will forever be part of our family and his girls will always know how much he loved them.

Scotland part 2

The second half of the week continued in much the same vein. We had one rainy afternoon which was actually quite nice to be holed up in the house with the rain lashing the windows. It probably wasn't quite so nice for the two visitors that came on their bikes but they're tough cookies - and its only water- but I did feel sorry for them having to cycle six miles back down the track in the wind and rain, but given Scotland, it wasn't as bad as it could be. The big quest for the 2nd half of the week was to find some deer antiers! The chap that owned the house dropped in to visit - he was a very friendly fella and was chatting about how this was the time of year when all the Stags lost their antlers (he collected them and sold them) so after that we were on the serious lookout. It's always been Fred's mission to find some dropped antlers.... The Monro baggers continued with the mission to bag the remaining three Monros... there is discussion as whet...

Vigo

We left the ship to explore Vigo. Its a much larger place then we expected... although tbh I hadn't given ut a lot of thought. Its a real mish mash of old and new and having got a map from tourist info we decided to follow the walking trail to the Monte Castro... the highest point of the town. Most of the town was pretty much as everywhere else... lots of traffic... lots of people... one or two interesting buildings and a lot of shopping. We headed to the art gallery - this has been a year of gallery visits so we we seen o reason to change now. The Museo de Marco is housed in the towns ex prison building and its very grand. In fact, I think that on this occaision the building might have been more interesting than the art.... Although the visiting exhibition by Susanne S D Themlitz was strangely compelling. It was a huge varied collection of eclectic items... found, salavaged, manipulated and arranged in lots of ways - weirdly inspiring - and mostly enjoyable to look at...

Funchal

So after three days at sea we finally hit Funchal in Madeira. An escape from the ship, and I have to say it was very pleasant indeed. First of all the weather is really splendid. Especially when you know that everybody else in the UK is suffering grim storms and vile winds.. Over here it is between 22 and 25 degrees is really quite warm. Funchal is a pretty city. It's built on a hill it with lots of lovely white houses with stunning red roofs. In order to get the best of it we walked along the sea front until we got to the cable car and we took it up the hill. It was a really good ride much longer than we imagined and it's quite weird because it goes right through the town - completely over everybody's house... So not only do you get a lovely vista of the bay but you can view the beautiful rooftops and get to look in everybody's gardens and to look at their picnic sets.. clean washing nice plants... scratty b...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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