So I should be saying Happy 67th Birthday today! But I am not am I, you ensured you stayed 66 forever - that is an extreme way of not getting anymore grey hairs!
I cannot imagine how you thought suicide would be the answer.
I cannot imagine how you could have thought that being dead would have had anything but a negative effect on your two remaining children and all your grandchildren.
For me it has been the ultimate punch in the face, you wanted to be with your other daughter and not me.
Did you have any awareness that this is how it would leave me feeling? I hope not! That way I can fantasise that this is just my own interpretation of how I am feeling, not how you were feeling.
There are days when I want to slap you round the face and remind you that you chose to have children - so why did you bring me up feeling as though it was my own fault that I existed?????
Then there are days when my heart bleeds for what you had to go through as a child, and for the support that you did not get from family, friends or counsellors.
I know I am so very fortunate. I have an amazing husband, and beautiful loving children. There are friends surrounding us that are there to support and hold us when we need it. To leave us be when we need that. And to make us smile and laugh when we need that.
I do hope seeing me striving to break the mould has not made you sad. I do hope that you can see that we are trying to nurture individuality and freedom for our children. Yes this means there are times when I have to let my children 'Show off', but who are they harming? Yesterday when A was walking down the street holding her arms out walking like a catwalk model, I could feel you cringing besides me and chastising me for letting her do it. But she was having fun, she was playing, she was using her imagination to live out fantasies. She was enjoying herself! She knew this was an extra special treat - time with me.
There are only three memories that I have of you and me spending time just the two of us, maybe more will come back to me with time.
One was off us shopping together when I was probably 12 or so, but we were shopping for you. I remember you constantly telling me this. I had known that is why you were going but had still wanted to come with you with the hope that you might treat me to something. You didn't, you just got cross that I wanted to look at things that were not what you were looking for.
The next was when I took you for lunch when you were visiting your mum in Kingston. It must have been when she was in hospital, before Sally died as otherwise she would have come with us. That I remember being a really pleasant pub lunch.
The last memory is of your birthday present last year. Do you remember I got us tickets to see a west end show - something you had never done. But you hated the whole experience. Even telling me this while we were eating our lunch out in a lovely restaurant. That hurt me so much.
So today is a bittersweet day for me. There is a part of me relieved that I no longer feel responsible for trying to make life worth living ( yes I know that I did not have to do this, but it is how I felt). Then there is the other part that had so hoped that living closer to each other would mean spending more quality time together, maybe even getting to know and respect each other more as we grew older. For this I grieve.
I cannot imagine how you thought suicide would be the answer.
I cannot imagine how you could have thought that being dead would have had anything but a negative effect on your two remaining children and all your grandchildren.
For me it has been the ultimate punch in the face, you wanted to be with your other daughter and not me.
Did you have any awareness that this is how it would leave me feeling? I hope not! That way I can fantasise that this is just my own interpretation of how I am feeling, not how you were feeling.
There are days when I want to slap you round the face and remind you that you chose to have children - so why did you bring me up feeling as though it was my own fault that I existed?????
Then there are days when my heart bleeds for what you had to go through as a child, and for the support that you did not get from family, friends or counsellors.
I know I am so very fortunate. I have an amazing husband, and beautiful loving children. There are friends surrounding us that are there to support and hold us when we need it. To leave us be when we need that. And to make us smile and laugh when we need that.
I do hope seeing me striving to break the mould has not made you sad. I do hope that you can see that we are trying to nurture individuality and freedom for our children. Yes this means there are times when I have to let my children 'Show off', but who are they harming? Yesterday when A was walking down the street holding her arms out walking like a catwalk model, I could feel you cringing besides me and chastising me for letting her do it. But she was having fun, she was playing, she was using her imagination to live out fantasies. She was enjoying herself! She knew this was an extra special treat - time with me.
There are only three memories that I have of you and me spending time just the two of us, maybe more will come back to me with time.
One was off us shopping together when I was probably 12 or so, but we were shopping for you. I remember you constantly telling me this. I had known that is why you were going but had still wanted to come with you with the hope that you might treat me to something. You didn't, you just got cross that I wanted to look at things that were not what you were looking for.
The next was when I took you for lunch when you were visiting your mum in Kingston. It must have been when she was in hospital, before Sally died as otherwise she would have come with us. That I remember being a really pleasant pub lunch.
The last memory is of your birthday present last year. Do you remember I got us tickets to see a west end show - something you had never done. But you hated the whole experience. Even telling me this while we were eating our lunch out in a lovely restaurant. That hurt me so much.
So today is a bittersweet day for me. There is a part of me relieved that I no longer feel responsible for trying to make life worth living ( yes I know that I did not have to do this, but it is how I felt). Then there is the other part that had so hoped that living closer to each other would mean spending more quality time together, maybe even getting to know and respect each other more as we grew older. For this I grieve.
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