Digression (1st Birthday)

This is going to be a hard one to write; it's Olivers 1st birthday tomorrow. Knowing I have started this blog has helped me in so many ways. Firstly, because i like to talk about my son, and secondly, I have found this a good way to remember him and get it all out. 

Tomorrow is going to be hard for many reasons, as I’m sure you can all imagine. The plan is for myself and Fran, also not forgeting my little Rose-bud, to meet at our local park. Rose has written Oliver a letter she wants to send to him in heaven, saying how she misses him and how she is looking after her dad. She’s also telling him how she’s getting on at school, aswell as what she’s been doing otherwise; such as kickboxing and gymnastics.

If life was fair, Oliver would have been with us on this day, but life isnt fair; it doesn’t owe anything to anyone. I could feel sad and shut out the world, but what would that achieve? For Oliver’s birthday we have set up Oliver's Hampers; something to donate to medway hospital (nicu) for the babies, staff, and families.

This has given me great pleasure to do this on Oliver's behalf and has meant the world to me. If he were here, we would have all bought him gifts, but with him not here I can still feel like I’m doing something for him.

I can’t begin to tell you all how much I want him here, to have him in my arms, to watch him smile, he would probably be beginning to walk now. The time I did have though, I didnt take for granted. It brings me peace to know I was with him as much as I could be. I got to do things some parents dont get to do; I’m lucky to have been given that time.

I don’t want to give away too much because it will spoil future posts. But what I will say is for all the negative and down days we had, there were many good days to come.

I can look back on this last year with my head held high and knowing I got the privilege of seeing and meeting my son. 

I’m kind of lost for words; and I’m not realy sure what to say. I don’t want this to be a sad post as a birthday is a celebration of life. What I would ask is for any one who reads this, even if it be a few people, just take a few minuts for Oliver and reflect on what you have. 

I’m going to leave it here; as again I just don’t know what to say. 

I do want to say a quick thank you to all the people who have supported me and Fran through this time... without you things would have been a lot tougher. Also a massive thank you to everyone that has donated to Oliver's hampers. 

Next is a good post :)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

digression pt2 sorry

So I got a phone call tonight from Demelza hospice. The place where my son went after he had passed. I was asked if I would like to join a group on Facebook to do with the loss of a child... Willingly I accepted. Man if I’d have known I was going to see a family I met at Ronald McDonald house, I still would have accepted but I would’ve taken time to prepare myself for the fact that this would hit me like a tonne of bricks. In the coming future of my story this family will make their debut. Only by joining that Facebook group, I found out their son didn't make it.  This has hit me hard, we are approximately a half an hour drive away from each other, furthermore, we shared the same residence at Ronald McDonald and their son was one room over from mine. Please take a moment of silence for them. The hard parts are who do you tell this information to? Who will listen? Should I keep my thoughts to myself?  Also I don't know what I'm really feeling; how do I even articulate all of
Read more

5th August: pink turtle, smiles and Tattoos.

Image
5th August: Things were getting ontop of us by now, the stress and anxiety had reached an uncomfortable level. Still fighting olivers battle, but by now we were fighting our own battles. Exhaustion, depression and fear where an everyday occurance. I remember Frances texting me on this day, saying she just needed to be alone. She said she wasn't OK and she was worried about Oliver. She decided to take herself out for a drive to clear her head, and if that's what she needed to do then that's what she needed to do. Her mum asked her to come home and talk about it, I even asked her to talk about it, but she wanted to be alone. As hard as that was to deal with because we all wanted to be there to help her, it was just something you have to go through, Lord knows I have since needed some time on my own. Further on in the day tho we got a picture of olivers belly, it looked so much better. At the time we knew we Still had a long time to wait for it to be fully healed, and to get h
Read more

17th August: The day before

Image
17th August: The day before. After an exhausting and emotionally draining weekend, with highs of family visiting and lows of knowing why they where there, myself and Frances where completely drained.  This was going to be our final full day with Oliver and we knew it, but most of all we felt it. The struggle to find any sence of happiness was overwhelmed by the sadness of knowing that tomorrow we will be saying goodbye to our son.  Making our way into the hospital together was undescribable. For us this was out of the ordinary, not so unordinary for couples outside of covid, but we had never been able to see Oliver together unless it was bad news. Although the situation was an averwhelmingly sad situation, for us this was the first time together we got to spend the whole day with our son and that was special to us. We had a professional photographer come and take some lovely photos of us, and as nice as this was I couldn't help but think soon this is all we will have, j
Read more