Gisburn

My first time riding at Gisburn in the forest of Bowland. Loved it despite the very wet weather. Very technical in places and some great down hill sections and loved Hully Gully! Shall be back when it's dry :)

Fishing....

Our first fishing experience on the Nidd!  We caught a trout and had 2 come off the hook.  Thom really enjoyed it so now we'll get some membership sorted so not to ruffle the locals feathers.....oops too late.

Life despite grief.

Hard few weeks...Some feelings of depression and disrupted sleep. I could easily lock myself away and not engage with life at the moment. Part of my brain wants that but there's a part that's reached out for support and brought life...This weekend I've done alot of biking and it's been brilliant to get out doors and be with people.

Missing Mum.

My Mum died on 5th April 2004.  I miss my mum....I miss my mum so much...she was my safety blanket...as long as she was around I’d be ok....and she went.  She died....She died in a horrible way....I felt helpless.   I had no support...I’m angry about this...it hurts so much and I  never listened to my grief....I never did....I didn’t acknowledge my feelings...no one did....they were dismissed....you had to be strong..keep going, I didn't know how to deal with it so I guess I buried it..  Be there for others.  I’ve had enough of being there for others...I'm now here for me. Mum did in her way.....I felt safe when she was here.  She was my mum...the person who gave birth to me...pure unconditional love. Not perfect, far from it and I understand now that she was flawed but she loved me...and I miss that so much.  I’m frustrated, and angry and sad that I do not have her in my life anymore.  To call, to speak to, to hold, to get annoyed with, to share what we’re doing, for saying how proud I am of what we’ve done.    To help me through this difficult time after losing Claire....to just hold me so I can cry. I love you so much Mum and to know you are not here hurts....  I can feel you shifting inside me as I grow.  You weren’t much support or offered much direction, but to know you were there was so important to me. When I did move out and start to become an adult was when I lost you, when I’d just started to open up to you went.  My survivor became my security blanket when you left.  I no longer need it, but to let it go means to fully acknowledge my loss of my mum.  

Whitby with Nini and Scot

12th March saw us revisit Whitby. I've not been back since Claire died and it was a hard trip to make.  Lots of memories there as we spent lots of time there in 2014 and making use of Claires disables sticker. We last were here in Sept 2014 and we did lots of the same again this time...boat trip..donkeys...beach. It was a good day and glad we revisited and made some new memories. Thom and Eli had a blast!

Grief...acknowledging

Grief cleanse…So today I’ve mostly cried and felt the deepest grief I’ve felt ever….I’ve used some mindfulness and just let myself feel it and let it be there and I also journalled. I’m proud of myself for doing this and I’m also going to share this with my friends as I feel I want them to understand my journey. I’ll give them the choice of reading it or not. Here’s what I wrote in the midst of the grief…

To have someone you love die in your arms when you should be looking forward to your future and raising your child together…does anyone actually know what that’s like? To have to go and see your dead wife on your own in the chapel of rest when she’s in her wedding dress and place things in her coffin made by the children who she loved dearly….It’s impossible….but I had to do it. To ring up our friends and tell them that she died.  To watch the undertaker carry her body out of our family home and out of the front door.  To have to tell your 3 year old son the next day that him mummy died and that she's no longer here,,,, Why me? No idea…..I cannot begin to tell you how much that hurts I’ve just had my first ever real panic attack writing this….it feels like part of your soul is being ripped from you….and that is what’s happening. Your old life dies there and then….you’ll try and try and try to keep it going..the old life but you cannot. But still you’ll try….and then you’ll try and diminish it’s impact….but that won’t work. Eventually you’ll have to feel the pain. But before then you’ll try and live again….you’ll try and rebuild…move forwards but until that pain and that loss is acknowledged and all of the other tiny losses and bigger losses that losing that person means to you are felt. No one warns you about that….No one. The anger / rage you will feel and you have nowhere to direct it so it goes inwards…..you attack yourself as you cannot give it to anyone else. You get angry at the person for abandoning you…for leaving you, for them getting the easier option. Then you feel guilt…guilt for still being alive…for feeling happy again, for laughing, for being with other people who make you feel good…for living. To have to go on. For hearing people saying how fucking brave you are….how they can’t imagine…..it’s not bravery…its survival…it’s clinging onto life with sometimes just your finger tips. To have to raise a child without his mum….a child who sometimes longs to be with his mum….who sometimes says he’s forgetting her…a child who tries to cheer you up when you feel sad. A child you sometimes feel resentment for as you never wanted to be a single parent and it’s so hard having to be the one who’s looking after him alone. To watch him sleep when you know his mum loved him so much but you know that he’ll never meet her again…I’ll never see her again. To know that your own mum never got to meet him, and that she isn’t here to support you. To sleep alone, to wake alone, to have to make every single decision on your own. To meet some amazing people who make your heart skip again and then only to realise that you’re still not ready and have yet more pain and hurt to process and then deal with the loss of them again and being alone again.  To see friends have babies when you would of loved the opportunity to have another one with your wife but that was also taken from you, (of course I'm happy for them but it still hurts).  To live in a place that was our joint dream alone and not to be able to share the place I find with Claire. To live 50 miles away from Claire’s family and have your own family 200 miles away. To be the only dad there every day to pick up your son and see all the other mums doing it and realising that Thom or Claire will never have that. To have to work again, to get bogged down with the mundane, the people moaning about shit in their lives and material crap when you’ve had an inside into how precious and wonderful and short this life is…to just smile and say to yourself they have no idea. To have to rely on people when you were part of an amazing and self sufficient team and are proudly independent. To feel trapped and unable to go work in an office that's local and see colleagues as easy as you liked when Claire was here.  The loss of freedom... To have people avoid you, to avoid talking about your loss, to change the subject as they are uncomfortable about talking about death and feelings. To have people say at least you have Thom to focus on when you just want them to acknowledge your hurt and feelings. To have them say you are ‘troubled’….I’m not troubled, I’m not broken…I don’t want you to fix me I just want you to acknowledge how hard this is for me and just listen. Just say Hi now and again.

I’m am so grateful to be alive and I believe I’m living an even fuller life than I was before…I’m certainly more ‘me’ now and I know myself so much better and I’m so proud of what I’ve done and who both I and Thom have become and our growth in the 17 months since Claire died but sometimes like today I need to express all of these feelings and to be validated for everything I’ve had to endure and survive so far.  I know there are others also on this journey and others far far worse off but in this blog I'm honoring my own feelings and acknowledging them for me.  This isn't about feeling sorry for myself..this is about healing.